Preamble

The House met at half-past Two o'clock

PRAYERS

[Mr. SPEAKER in the Chair]

PETITION

Stansted Airport

Mr. Kirk: With your permission, Mr. Speaker, and that of the House, I wish to present a Petition by the Rural District Council of Saffron Walden concerning the decision of Her Majesty's Government to site the third London Airport at Stansted. The Petition sets out the intentions of Her Majesty's Government, and submits that they would have
disastrous consequences to agriculture and village life
and are against the advice and findings of the inspector appointed by the Government.
The Petition continues
Wherefore your Petitioner prays that Her Majesty's Government may be called upon to examine afresh its policy for national airports and the suitability of Stansted and other alternative sites for the Third London Airport and to refrain from granting planning permission for the development of the airport at Stansted until this has been done and a final decision can be taken in the context of an overall national airports policy.
The Petition concludes in the customary way, with the words
And your Petitioner, as in duty bound, will ever pray.

To lie upon the Table.

OVERSEAS TRADE

Account ordered,
relating to Overseas Trade in the United Kingdom for each month during the year 1968.— [Mr. Crosland.]

Oral Answers to Questions — MINISTRY OF LABOUR

Selective Employment Tax

Mr. Blaker: asked the Minister of Labour (1) whether he will make an order under Section 9(1) of the Selective Employment Payments Act, 1966, making the hotel and catering industries eligible for refund of selective employment tax;

(2) whether he will make an order under Section 9(1) of the Selective Employment Payments Act, 1966, making the retail distributive trades eligible for refund of selective employment tax.

The Joint Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Labour (Mr. Roy Hattersley): My right hon. Friend has asked me to apologise for his unavoidable absence. He is taking part in urgent discussions elsewhere.

The Answer is, No, Sir.

Mr. Blaker: Is it not rather odd that the hon. Gentleman should take these two Questions together, since they deal with different industries. With regard to Question No. 1, is it not clear that the Government have seriously underestimated the potential of the hotel and catering industries for saving and earning foreign currency? Is it not time to relieve them of the burdens of S.E.T.?
Does the hon. Gentleman recall that the imposition of the tax on the distributive trades was justified on the grounds that it would redress the balance of taxation between manufacturing and Service industries? Is not Purchase Tax at least as heavy a burden on the retail and distributive trades as on manufacturing? Should not they be relieved of this burden?

Mr. Hattersley: Questions numbers 1 and 2 were answered together because they both ask for fundamental and unacceptable alterations to the principles of Selective Employment Tax. Clearly, the Government accept the importance of the hotel and catering industry, and they provide many incentives to its expansion. Specific Questions about them should be referred to my right hon. Friend the President of the Board of Trade. I


remind the hon. Gentleman that he outlined only one of the fundamental purposes of S.E.T. It has many purposes, and they are being successfully carried out.

Mr. Hugh Jenkins: Is my hon. Friend reconsidering the application of the tax at all? If so, will he reconsider its application to the theatres, for example?

Mr. Hattersley: The House will know that, in answer to previous Questions, I have said that we are looking at the incidence of the tax, but that I could not give individual assurances about what alterations there might be.

Mr. John Hall: Does the hon. Gentleman remember that the main purpose of the tax was to encourage the movement of labour from the service industries to manufacturing? Has it had such an effect?

Mr. Hattersley: There is a Question on the Order Paper later about that purpose. If the hon. Gentleman reads again the Budget speech of my right hon. Friend the then Chancellor of the Exchequer, he will find that the purpose the hon. Gentleman outlined is only one—and a subsidiary purpose—of the tax.

Dr. John Dunwoody: When my hon. Friend is looking at the tax and taking into consideration the catering and hotel trades, will he look at the special Problems of that industry in the development areas, where there are higher unemployment rates?

Mr. Hattersley: When we are looking at the incidence of the tax, we look at all these points.

Mr. Blaker: In view of the unsatisfactory nature of the reply, I beg to give notice that I shall raise the matter on the Adjournment.

Mr. Boyd-Carpenter: asked the Minister of Labour what have been the changes in the number of workers employed by the service industries and in manufacturing industry between the introduction of the Selective Employment Tax and the latest convenient date.

Mr. Hattersley: Provisional estimates of employees in employment in manufacturing industries in Great Britain show a decrease of about 395,000 between

September, 1966 and October, 1967. Comparable estimates are not available for the service industries. Final estimates for each industry and service in the Standard Industrial Classification are made in respect of June each year; June, 1967 estimates will become available early in 1968.

Mr. Boyd-Carpenter: If when the Minister of Labour emerges from the Cabinet he is still a member of it, will the hon. Gentleman advise him to drop the argument that S.E.T. assists the redeployment of labour and suggest to him that the tax should be argued solely as a revenue raiser?

Mr. Hattersley: Several times already today I have reminded the House that the shift between service and manufacturing employment is only one of the purposes of the tax. I believe that that purpose is being served, as are the other purposes.

Mr. R. Carr: Is the Minister now expecting a change in the pattern of redeployment following the removal of the premium from manufacturing industry? If so, what change?

Mr. Hattersley: One of the changes I would certainly expect is that the new incentive in the development areas will be even greater because of the difference between the regional employment premium and the general employment taxation, with the result that there will be a move of work opportunities into development areas—a very necessary move.

Mr. G. Campbell: asked the Minister of Labour if he will introduce legislation to provide for the repayment of all the Selective Employment Tax collected in Scotland over the period of this winter.

Mr. Hattersley: No, Sir.

Mr. Campbell: Is not the hon. Gentleman aware that this would be one of the most effective ways of helping Scotland immediately through this winter?

Mr. Hattersley: I hope that another way which results from the existence of the S.E.T. and the regional employment premium, will provide Scotland with £40 million of assistance during the winter.

Mr. John Page: Does the hon. Gentleman recall the Answer he gave on 5th December, showing that in Scotland nearly twice as many people are employed in non-manufacturing industry as in manufacturing industry? Does this not prove the discriminatory way in which the S.E.T. acts in Scotland?

Mr. Hattersley: I have never accepted that the premium would only bring benefits to manufacturing industry. One of its functions is to increase demand generated by manufacturing industry, which will produce greater demand for Services in these areas.

Bank Employees (Union Representation)

Mr. Winnick: asked the Minister of Labour what further action has been taken by his Department in the current dispute to gain recognition for the National Union of Bank Employees from those banking firms that do not as yet recognise this union.

Mr. Montgomery: asked the Minister of Labour whether he has been asked to intervene in the dispute between banks and bank employees; and what reply he has sent.

Mr. Arnold Shaw: asked the Minister of Labour whether he will make a Statement on the current dispute between the National Union of Bank Employees and certain banking undertakings.

Mr. Bidwell: asked the Minister of Labour if he now proposes to intervene in the dispute between some members of the National Union of Bank Employees and the employers concerning the recognition of the National Union of Bank Employees for negotiating purposes.

Mr. Hunt: asked the Minister of Labour whether he will make a further Statement on his discussions regarding the dispute arising from the refusal of certain banks to recognise the right of the National Union of Bank Employees to negotiate on behalf of their members.

Mr. Hattersley: My right hon. Friend has received requests that he should intervene in this dispute from the T.U.C. and from the National Union of Bank Employees. Officers of the Ministry have had informal discussions over the past week with all the interests concerned

and following these, the Committee of London Clearing Bankers will be holding meetings within the next two days with the union and with the Central Council of Bank Staff Associations to discuss the question of negotiating machinery in the banks.

Mr. Winnick: Is not it disgraceful that bank workers are still on strike in this day and age to win recognition from their employers? Does my hon. Friend hold out much hope that the bank employers will begin to see sense on this matter, and thus prevent strikes taking place in the next few weeks which will cause great inconvenience to the people and the country?

Mr. Hattersley: The chances of a happy settlement have appreciably improved in the last fortnight. I would not want to do or say anything to diminish those chances by describing the actions of either party as disgraceful.

Mr. Montgomery: Can the hon. Gentleman explain why his right hon. Friend said that he would not act until the Royal Commission reported in 1968 but has now taken the action he refused to take earlier and which, if he had taken it earlier, would have prevented a great deal of bitterness?

Mr. Hattersley: My right hon. Friend said that the Royal Commission would have something to say about recognition of staff unions, and we must be bound by consideration for the possible findings of the report before doing something about this matter generally. But that does not exclude an intervention by my right hon. Friend, and when he was asked to intervene in this dispute he accepted the invitation and took the action he did.

Mr. Hunt: Does not the hon. Gentleman agree that the attitude of some of the banks towards trade unions is more reminiscent of 1867 than 1967? Will he ask his right hon. Friend to continue to endeavour to persuade the banks to recognise this eminently respectable and responsible body of men?

Mr. Hattersley: I agree that the attitudes of the banks differ, but during a week when consultations are taking place I would not want to put a date to any of those attitudes.

Mr. K. Lewis: Will the hon. Gentleman bear in mind that, in many cases, the employees are quite happy with the staff unions? Will he try to get a compromise rather than pressurise one side against the other?

Mr. Hattersley: I am sure that some employees are happy with the staff unions, but it is interesting to note that the N.U.B.E. has shown an appreciable increase in membership during the last fortnight.

Women (Equal Pay)

Dr. Summerskill: asked the Minister of Labour whether he will make a Statement as a result of his meeting with representatives of the Confederation of British Industry and the Trades Union Congress on 7th December concerning equal pay for women.

Mr. Hattersley: I met representatives of the C.B.I. and the T.U.C. on 7th December to consider a report by a Joint group of officials on certain technical aspects of implementing the principle of equal pay. I am arranging for a copy of the agreed Statement issued after this meeting to be circulated in the OFFICIAL REPORT.

Dr. Summerskill: Does not my hon. Friend agree that, as we are a party of principle, implementation of equal pay should not be delayed until after the next general election, and that a prices and incomes policy is neither fair nor just unless women are paid the rate for the job?

Mr. Hattersley: The Government have stated on many occasions that they are committed to the principle of equal pay, and I am happy to reiterate that commitment. But I am sure that the House will agree that the present economic Situation is not propitious for implementation. The Government have made plans to take some technical steps to ensure that we are ready to implement it when the economic Situation is right, however, and that is why I had talks with the C.B.I. and the T.U.C. on 7th December.

Following is the Statement :

Equal Pay

Mr. Roy Hattersley, Joint Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Labour today

(Thursday, 7th December, 1967) saw representatives of the C.B.I. and the T.U.C. to resume discussion of equal pay following a study of technical Problems by officials of the Ministry of Labour, the C.B.I. and the T.U.C.

Mr. Hattersley reaffirmed the Government's commitment to the principle of equal pay but said that in the present economic circumstances it was not possible to take immediate steps to give full implementation to the principle. But the Government was anxious to take action to be ready to implement the principle when circumstances were more favourable.

The meeting endorsed the conclusions of the Joint group of officials

(a) that the problem of defining equal pay could, for all practical purposes, to confined to the interpretation of I.L.O. Convention No. 100 and Article 119 of the Treaty of Rome.
(b) that voluntary methods of implementing equal pay were to be preferred to legislation (subject to the T.U.C.'s call for certain minimum conditions to ensure positive action); but that if Britain were to join the European Common Market a review of existing statutory wage legislation would be needed to give effect to the requirements of the Treaty.
(c) that although it was possible to roughly estimate the total direct cost of equal pay within broad limits, on the basis of existing knowledge all that could be said about the impact on particular sectors was that it would probably be very much greater in some industries than in others.
(d) that (apart from incomes policy considerations) the pace of implementation might have to take into account the particular circumstances of different sectors.

The meeting also agreed to the proposals for further action recommended by the Joint group of officials:

(1) A study might be commissioned of the cost implications for particular sectors of applying equal pay. If the findings of such a study were to be generally acceptable, it would however be necessary for the researcher(s) to secure the mutual agreement of both sides of industry as to the bases on which the research would be conducted.
(2) The Ministry could prepare a paper setting out the implications for legislation of the equal pay provisions of the Treaty of Rome.

Solely for the purpose of the proposed study of costs it was agreed that the working definitions to be used should be equal pay for the same work.

The meeting agreed that the Joint group of officials should be instructed to plan and launch the studies. The C.B.I. and T.U.C. representatives undertook to give full support and Cooperation to this work.

Remploy Factories

Mr. Willey: asked the Minister of Labour when he expects to plan a renewed increase in the number of disabled persons employed in Remploy factories.

The Joint Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Labour (Mr. E. Fernyhough): The increase has already started; the current strength of over 7,000 severely disabled persons is the highest in Remploy's history, and I hope this trend will continue in 1968.

Mr. Willey: Will my hon. Friend think of continuing his good work by relating the Ministry grant proportionately to the increase in the company's sales over, say, the past few years?

Mr. Fernyhough: I would like to look at that Suggestion without making any specific promise.

Northern Region (Training Places)

Mr. Willey: asked the Minister of Labour what is the current waiting list for entry into Government training centres in the Northern Region.

Mr. Hattersley: 528.

Mr. Willey: Does my hon. Friend realise that the question of training has top priority in the Northern Region? We have made a marginal improvement, but far more must be done, and immediately.

Mr. Hattersley: I accept that more must be done, and I hope that my right hon. Friend will take as evidence of my acceptance of that the fact that during the next two years training places in Government training centres in the North-East will more than double.

Mr. R. W. Elliott: Will the hon. Gentleman look with urgency at the range of training courses in Government training centres in the North-East, as the complaint from incoming industrialists of there not being a sufficient width of training courses is causing regular and increasing concern?

Mr. Hattersley: I hope to answer a Question specifically about this later.

Redundant Workers (Retraining)

Mr. G. Campbell: asked the Minister of Labour if he is satisfied with retraining arrangements for redundant workers, especially miners in Scotland; and if he will make a Statement.

Mr. Hattersley: Most of the retraining required by redundant workers is at semiskilled level and is best undertaken by their new employers with assistance from the industrial training boards, and the Government grants available to firms which train workers for new Jobs in development areas. Accelerated training for skill is given by eight Government training centres in Scotland with a potential annual output of over 1,700 trained men; by the spring of 1970 there will be nine centres with an annual output of about 2,500. These arrangements will go a long way towards meeting the needs of redundant workers, but retraining needs in Scotland will be kept under review.

Mr. Campbell: Does the hon. Gentleman recognise that this is now an urgent and important matter which requires high priority, particularly in view of the impending pit closures in Scotland?

Mr. Hattersley: I am aware of that. I hope the hon. Gentleman will take as evidence of that the fact that training places have been doubled since October 1964 and will treble on the October 1964 figure by the end of next year.

Mr. W. Hamilton: Can my hon. Friend State the number of miners who have applied for retraining facilities and how many have been accepted, and whether there has been any acceleration of the Programme of industrial training consequent upon publication of the Government White Paper on Fuel Policy?

Mr. Hattersley: The answer to the last part of that supplementary question is in the affirmative. I would like notice of the first part.

Mr. Monro: As the pit closure Programme begins again in February, cannot the hon. Gentleman site the new training centres nearer the areas of colliery closure?

Mr. Hattersley: A good deal of the new programme for training centres is


concentrated in the development areas and therefore in many cases is particularly convenient to redundant mine workers.

Industrial Retraining

Mr. Gwilym Roberts: asked the Minister of Labour how many applications for entry into industrial retraining were refused in the year ended September 1967 due to the non-availability of places; and what plan he had for increasing the number of places available.

Mr. Hattersley: None. But some applicants have had to wait a long time for admission to Government training centres. The waiting time will be considerably reduced by the 10 new centres and over 4,000 additional training places which will become available between now and early 1970. Four—Beilshill (North Lanarkshire), Maryport (Cumberland), Port Talbot and Runcorn—are expected to open in 1968; the remaining six—at Darlington, near Durham, in North Staffordshire, near Wakeneid, in West London and at Wrexham—by early 1970.

Mr. Roberts: While the whole House welcomes this information, would not my hon. Friend agree that, since retraining is a vital factor in technological change, if British industry is to have the degree of skill required to maintain its position in world markets, we must go even further and somehow or other treble the number of retraining places between now and 1970?

Mr. Hattersley: I agree that there has to be a renewed expansion of industrial training. But I think my hon. Friend is wrong if he implies that all this renewal should and must come from Government training centres. Much of it must and will be done by industry through encouragement by the industrial training boards.

Government Training Centres

Mr. Gwilym Roberts: asked the Minister of Labour if he will publish in the OFFICIAL REPORT the number of different skills and trades offered at Government retraining centres and the location of the training; and what plans he had for extending the range of skills available.

Mr. Hattersley: Yes, Sir, the OFFICIAL REPORT will show that 40 trades are

taught at 38 Government training centres. Each centre teaches a selection of these trades. The trades are kept under constant review and a number of new skills are to be introduced into training courses during the next few months.

Mr. Gwilym Roberts: Would my hon. Friends agree that, in view of this great need to increase the number of skills, there is room for even further co-operation between the Colleges of technology and the Colleges of further education and the facilities which are already available in large industrial firms?

Mr. Hattersley: These consultations already go on. It is as a result of them that we have new courses introduced into the G.T.C.s.

Mr. Scott: I wonder if the Minister can say what progress he has made in overcoming trade union resistance to the acceptance of adult trainees from Government training centres? Is it true that the trading centre in Manchester has been closed because of the obstacles put up by the trade unions?

Mr. Hattersley: I do not want to anticipate a Question on exactly that point, which appears later on the Paper today.

Following are the lists:

Trades taught at Government Training Centres

Bricklaying.
Carpentry.
Heating and ventilating fitting.
House painting and decorating.
Plastering.
Plumbing.
Slating and Tiling.
Contractors' plant maintenance.
Electrical installation.
Street masonry and paving.
Draughtsmanship.
Fitting—General.
Fitting—Jig and Tool.
Instrument fitting and machining.
Instrument maintenance.
Centre lathe turning.
Capstan setting/operating.
Milling setting/operating.
Precision grinding.
Sheet metal work.
Welding—Electric arc.
Welding—Oxy-acetylene.
Agricultural machinery repairing.
Cabinet making.
Scientific glassblowing.
Radio, television and electronic servicing.
Screen process printing.
Typewriter repairing.
Motor repairing.
Heavy vehicle repairing.
Vehicle body building.
Motor vehicle—spray painting.


Motor body repair.
Watch and clock repairing.
Woodcutting machining.
Storekeeping.
Men's hairdressing.
Tailoring (Retail Bespoke).
Canteen cooking.
Light engineering (for blind persons).

List of Government Training Centres

Northern Region

Billingham.
Felling.
Killingworth.
Tursdale (near Durham).

Yorkshire and Humberside Region

Hull.
Leeds.
Sheffield.

Eastern and Southern Region

Letchworth.
Norwich.
Slough.
Southampton.

London and South Eastern Region

Enfield.
Medway (Gillingham).
Perivale.
Poplar.
Waddon.
West Sussex (Lancing).

South Western Region

Bristol
Gloucester.
Plymouth.

Wales

Cardiff.
Llanelli.

Midlands Region

Birmingham.
Coventry.
Leicester.
Long Eaton.

North Western Region

Blackburn.
Manchester.
Hindley.
Liverpool.

Scotland

Dumbarton.
Dunfermline.
Glasgow (Hillington).
Irvine.
Port Glasgow.
Motherwell.
Queenslie.
Edinburgh.

Wages and Salaries

Mr. Biffen: asked the Minister of Labour if he is satisfied that the vetting committee of the Trades Union Congress is sufficiently effective to control the movement of wages and salaries during the period of extreme moderation; and if he will make a Statement of Government policy in this respect.

Mr. Hattersley: I would refer the hon. Member to the Written Reply my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Economic Affairs gave to the hon. Member for Lewisham, West (Mr. Dickens) on 5th December, 1967.—[Vol. 755, c. 289.]

Mr. Biffen: That is a pretty poor reply. Is the Joint Parliamentary Secretary aware that Article 12 of the Letter of Intent sent to Mr. Schweitzer said specifically that vetting arrangements would be strengthened? Now in what way have the T.U.C. vetting arrangements been strengthened since that letter was sent? Can the House be told that in explicit and forthright terms?

Mr. Hattersley: I am afraid it cannot be told in explicit and forthright terms at this moment. The hon. Member will know that the T.U.C. is at this moment considering its incomes policy in this Situation. I am sure that when it is ready to make a Statement it will do so. Till that happens I believe it would be quite wrong for me to say what it may say or to comment on the probable outcome of its discussions.

Mr. Biffen: asked the Minister of Labour what minimum level of earnings constitutes a lowest paid worker for the purposes of the Government's prices and incomes policy.

Mr. Hattersley: I would refer the hon. Member to the reply I gave him on 4th April, 1967.—[Vol. 744, c. 30.]

Mr. Biffen: Yes, but is the hon. Gentleman aware that those replies are so unsatisfactory that one comes back constantly to this question? Is the Joint Parliamentary Secretary aware that this question is of such significance that it cannot be shuffled off on to the Aubrey Jones Board? In the Situation of post-devaluation, can the Government State quite clearly what, in their view, constitutes the earnings that qualify for the definition of the lowest paid worker?

Mr. Hattersley: Our view is and always has been that there is no simple answer, certainly no simple figure, which can be given. The Government accept that their Obligation is to look at individual industries and individual decisions and consider whether they cover the lowest paid workers on the case presented to them.

Mr. Leadbitter: Is my hon. Friend aware that in 1964 over 8 million people in this country were receiving National Assistance for payments at those levels or below? I would suggest that the Labour Government would not have thought those would be the only "lowest paid workers" since devaluation.

Industrial Manpower

Sir J. Eden: asked the Minister of Labour what immediate steps he proposes to take to promote the more efficient use of manpower in industry so as to help the increase in exports now necessary in the light of the devaluation of the £ Sterling.

Mr. Hattersley: The promotion of the more efficient use of manpower is a continuing and complex process which the Government have assisted through a number of measures. This policy will be continued and developed.

Sir J. Eden: The Government are always paying lip service to this, but when are they really going to do something about restrictive practices? When will they act? Is not the matter now extremely urgent?

Mr. Hattersley: I am not sure what restrictive practices the hon. Member refers to. If they are some of those we have heard about over the last fortnight or month, I think he will remember that we regard our Obligation as one which involves waiting for the report of the Royal Commission on trade unions.

Mr. John Hall: Is the hon. Gentleman aware that when I have tried to obtain Information by means of Parliamentary Questions about productivity of our own industries compared with that of our major overseas rivals, I have been told that no such information or comparison existed? How can the Government help productivity when they do not know this?

Mr. Hattersley: I am aware that the hon. Member has sought that information, but I am not surprised that he has found it impossible to come by it. Clearly the problem is so complex that international comparisons are meaningless. What I think I can assure him and the House is that we are doing all we can to build up productivity levels and to improve the position here in Britain.

Cost of Living

Sir J. Eden: asked the Minister of Labour what is his estimate of the effect of devaluation of the £ Sterling on the cost of living index; and what will be the resulting total additional cost in increased wages where wage rates are automatically linked to the index.

Mr. Hattersley: I estimate that the devaluation of the £ Sterling will raise the Index of Retail Prices by 2½ to 3 per cent. The effect of future index movements on cost-of-living sliding-scale arrangements for manual workers cannot be forecast with any precision, but it is estimated that it might add something of the order of £100,000 to the weekly wages bill.

Sir J. Eden: Is it not a fact that prices are rising very rapidly at the moment, and has not the hon. Gentleman taken very clearly into account the consequential effects on wage rates of the movement of prices themselves?

Mr. Hattersley: No. We have considered all these things and the best estimate we can give to the House is 2½ per cent. or 3 per cent.

Redundant Miners, Consett-Stanley

Mr. David Watkins: asked the Minister of Labour if he will establish a Government training centre to re-train redundant miners in the Consett-Stanley area of County Durham.

Mr. Hattersley: A new centre is to be set up near Durham and is planned to Start training by the end of 1969. It will be available to retrain redundant miners from the Consett-Stanley area who want and are suitable for the accelerated training given at Government training centres. Two existing training centers—Felling and Tursdale—are within daily travelling distance of Consett and Stanley.

Mr. Watkins: While appreciating my hon. Friend's Answer, may I ask him whether he is aware that it will be necessary in the next three years to create 3,000 to 3,500 new jobs in the Consett-Stanley area? Is he satisfied that those training facilities will be sufficient for retraining on that scale?

Mr. Hattersley: We certainly understand the need to create new Jobs in the area and to make sure that some of those jobs are for skilled men and that there are skilled men available to All them. That is why we have accelerated the programme for training in all development areas.

Strikes

Mr. Cordle: asked the Minister of Labour what proportion of strikes in the last 18 months was in breach of collective agreements.

Mr. Hattersley: From the figures of strikes known to be official it can be estimated that between 90 and 95 per cent. of the strikes which occurred in the 18 months covering 1966 and the first half of 1967 were unofficial. Most of these strikes were in breach of procedura agreements.

Mr. Cordle: When will the Minister of Labour introduce legislation to enable collective agreements to be enforceable at law?

Mr. Hattersley: The question presupposes that the Minister of Labour will introduce some legislation at some time. If that supposition is right, I have to tell the hon. Gentleman that he will know that we have no intention of that till after the report of the Royal Commission on trade unions.

Mr. John Page: Is the hon. Gentleman aware that this quite extraordinary answer will cause great disquiet in the country and that the country is expecting the Government to take action on the lines suggested by my hon. Friend?

Mr. Hattersley: I hope, if there is disquiet in the country, the country will get the matter clearly in perspective. For the first nine months of this year, the ratio of days lost through unofficial strikes as opposed to official strikes was about four to one. This is by no means the worst record. For the first nine months in 1960, for instance, the figure was six to one.

Mr. Hugh Jenkins: Is my hon. Friend aware that the Labour movement and even the most intelligent Conservatives recognise that it is impossible to stop industrial disputes by legal action?

Mr. Hattersley: I think we need to see if the report of the Royal Commission on trade unions upholds that view.

Mr. Ridsdale: The Minister has three times mentioned the Royal Commission on trade unions. Would he care to say when this Commission will report? Does he realise that this is a matter of the utmost urgency for the country?

Mr. Hattersley: We certainly realise the urgency of all these matters. I think the House will recall that my right hon. Friend once said that he looked forward to good advice in the spring, and that is the time when we hope to have something from the Royal Commission.

Mr. Edward M. Taylor: asked the Minister of Labour how many hours were lost in strikes in the first nine months of 1967; how many hours were lost by men and women made redundant in consequence of these strikes; and what were the comparable figures for the first nine months of each of the previous five years.

Mr. Hattersley: As the reply includes a number of figures, I will, with permission, circulate a Statement in the OFFICIAL REPORT.

Mr. Taylor: Would the hon. Gentleman agree that the modern arrangement of industry means that a large number of innocent people are put out of work when there is an unofficial strike, and will he consider, after the Royal Commission, a cooling-off period?

Mr. Hattersley: I am sure that the Royal Commission will consider it, and we will consider anything that it recommends. However, I could not give an undertaking before its report is published.

Following is the reply:

The number of days lost at the establishments where the disputes occurred through stoppages of work due to industrial disputes in the United Kingdom in the first nine months in each of the years 1962 to 1967 was as follows:


1962
4,980,000


1963
1,265,000


1964
1,890,000


1965
2,511,000


1966
2,043,000


1967 (Provisional)
1,730,000


General Information is not available about time lost at establishments other than those where the disputes occurred.

Airline Pilots (Dispute)

Captain Orr: asked the Minister of Labour whether he will make a further Statement on the dispute between the British Airline Pilots Association and the Airline Corporations.

Mr. Hattersley: I would refer the hon. Member to the Reply given to the hon. Member for Oswestry (Mr. Biffen) on 11th December, 1967. My right hon. Friend has now appointed the Court of Inquiry under the chairmanship of Lord Pearson.—[Vol. 756, c. 11–12.]

Captain Orr: May I ask the Minister two questions arising out of that? First, as a matter of clarification of the terms of reference of the Court of Inquiry, to inquire into the causes and circumstances of the dispute, could the Minister say what dispute? Is this dispute between B.O.A.C. and the Association, or does it cover B.E.A. pilots as well? Is he aware that, pending the report of this inquiry, there are no talks on any subject whatever between the Corporations and their pilots, and that the matter is one of very great urgency indeed? Would he press this upon his right hon. Friend?

Mr. Hattersley: My right hon. Friend accepts the urgency. I hope that the hon. Gentleman will be comforted to know that we understand that the outcome of the inquiry is likely to apply to B.E.A. as well as to B.O.A.C. As for talks between the parties during the time that the inquiry is being carried on, an undertaking has been given that, at least while the inquiry is taking place, there will be no industrial action by either side.

Mr. Rankin: To try to avoid these disputes in the future, will my hon. Friend encourage top-level management in B.O.A.C. to take a closer interest in the Problems of the pilots than hitherto and not leave everything in that direction in the hands of second line executives?

Mr. Hattersley: Whatever encouragement is given to the Corporations, either by my right hon. Friend or by the President of the Board of Trade, had better await the outcome of the inquiry.

Sir A. V. Harvey: To ensure good working arrangements in future, would not the hon. Gentleman suggest to the

President of the Board of Trade that if the Corporations were to appoint senior captains as members of their boards who could keep in dose touch with aircrew problems much of the troubles could be overcome?

Mr. Hattersley: Again, I would not like to endorse or accept suggestions before the inquiry is over.

Thorne

Mr. George Jeger: asked the Minister of Labour whether he is aware that the unemployment figure at Thorne is now 8·6 per cent.; and what action is being taken to provide full employment there.

Mr. Fernyhough: I am aware that the percentage rate of unemployment for Thorne is high, but the figures are distorted by extensive travel to work movements in the area. My local officers are doing all they can to help those unemployed to find other work and to offer training facilities where appropriate. In considering applications for industrial development certificates, my right hon. Friend the President of the Board of Trade will take full account of the level of unemployment in the area.

Mr. Jeger: Is my hon. Friend not aware that if there was not considerable movement by workers in Thorne to employment elsewhere the figure would be much higher than 8·6 per cent.? Since his is the fifth Government Department to acknowledge this unemployment figure, will he tell the House which Department will do something about it?

Mr. Fernyhough: I think all Government Departments want to do something about it. I accept that it is a totally unsatisfactory and completely indefensible figure.

Scotland

Mr. Edward M. Taylor: asked the Minister of Labour how many people were unemployed in Scotland at the most recent date for which figures are available; and how many unfilled vacancies existed in Scotland on that date.

Mr. Fernyhough: At November, 1967, there were 83,200 registered as wholly unemployed and 2,700 as temporarily


stopped; 14,400 notified vacancies remained unfilled.

Mr. Taylor: As a good number of these were in shipbuilding, and as two Clyde yards are building their last ships, with no Orders to come, will the hon. Gentleman agree that we cannot afford to turn down valuable and major Orders from South Africa, and will he tell his right hon. Friend so?

Mr. Fernyhough: If the future of the British shipbuilding industry has to depend upon orders of that kind alone, then it has no future—[Interruption.] But I believe that the Clyde, the Tyne, the Mersey and the rest of the British shipyards are in a better position today, as a result of what this Government have done, to obtain a greater proportion of the world's new ships.

Mr. Hector Hughes: Can my hon. Friend specify where these unemployed are and what are the areas where there are unfilled vacancies?

Mr. Fernyhough: Not without notice. I have given the figure for the whole of Scotland.

Mr. Bruce-Gardyne: Will the hon. Gentleman confirm that he cleared the first part of his answer to my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow, Cathcart (Mr. Edward M. Taylor) with the Cabinet?

Mr. Fernyhough: No. The hon. Gentleman asked for my opinion and I gave it.

Mr. Bruce-Gardyne: asked the Minister of Labour what was the number of persons in employment in Scotland in October, 1964, and at the latest available date; and what percentage change this represented.

Mr. Fernyhough: Estimates of the total numbers employed in Scotland were made at mid-year only up to June, 1965, and subsequently at quarterly intervals.
Between June, 1964, and March, 1967, the latest date for which information is available, the numbers decreased by 1·1 per cent. from 2,132,000 to 2,108,000.

Mr. Bruce-Gardyne: Is it not deplorable that we do not have more up-to-date figures? These figures are already six months late and they show a very unsatisfactory trend under the present Government. Should we not

have something more up to date to show how much worse the Situation has become since March?

Mr. Fernyhough: I do not know whether that is possible, but we will look into it.

Mr. Rankin: Could my hon. Friend say how far that reduction has been affected by the advance of technological industry in Scotland?

Mr. Fernyhough: No. I would say, quite frankly, that much of this reduction is a consequence of the neglect of Scotland over the years.

Mr. Bruce-Gardyne: asked the Minister of Labour if he will seek powers to enable him to ensure that men trained in engineering in Government training centres in Scotland are not prevented from taking employment for which their training has qualified them by union regulations.

Mr. Hattersley: We are not aware of any union regulations which prevent the employment of men trained in Government training centres in their training trades. We have the co-operation at national level of the unions concerned in the acceptance of men trained in engineering, but there are restrictions in a few areas including parts of Scotland. We are continuing our efforts to overcome these by persuasion, through the good Offices of the T.U.C. and the executives of the unions concerned.

Mr. Bruce-Gardyne: Is the hon. Member aware that that is a pretty unsatisfactory answer, in the light of the correspondence that I have sent to his right hon. Friend? Will he study that correspondence again and confirm that this shows a disgraceful Situation persisting in this matter in eastern Scotland?

Mr. Hattersley: I am aware of the correspondence that the hon. Member has sent to my right hon. Friend. The difficulties that I outlined in my Answer occur in areas within the hon. Member's constituency—

Mr. Maxwell-Hyslop: On a point of order. Is it in order for the hon. Member for Orpington (Mr. Lubbock) to be on his feet at the same time as the Minister?

Mr. Speaker: It is not in order.

Mr. Hattersley: Certainly the Problems to which the hon. Member referred occur in certain parts of his constituency, but the letter that he wrote to my right hon. Friend did not include an entirely accurate description of the position.

Immigrant Trainees (Language Tuition)

Sir G. Sinclair: asked the Minister of Labour what Provision is made, under the industrial training boards, for supplementary language tuition for immigrant trainees who may seek it to make their training more effective.

Mr. Hattersley: Facilities for language tuition for immigrants are provided by the education Service and industrial training boards are free to recognise for grant purposes any costs incurred.

Sir G. Sinclair: As a language difficulties are a main obstacle for many young immigrants who have not had much education in this country, will the hon. Gentleman, in consultation with his colleagues in the Department of Education and Science, not take more positive action towards helping them?

Mr. Hattersley: If the hon. Gentleman examines the recommendations of the 21 industrial training boards, he will find that virtually all of them allow language tuition, as long as the course is appropriate. The only bar placed on grant is according to the nature of the course. I think the hon. Gentleman will find that the Situation meets his demand.

Miss Quennell: Have the recommendations in this respect been followed by all the boards concerned?

Mr. Hattersley: My information is that language tuition of some sort rates for grant in every board. However, I emphasise the words "of some sort". The recommendations vary from board to board, as one would anticipate, because boards are supposed to meet the specific demands of their own industries.

Gibraltarians

Mr. Braine: asked the Minister of Labour if he is satisfied that Gibraltarians seeking vouchers to take up work in the United Kingdom are being given reasonable facilities to do so; and how

such facilities compare with those enjoyed by Spaniards seeking work in this country.

Mr. Fernyhough: To the first part of the Question the answer is, Yes, As regards the second part, the circumstances differ so much that comparisons cannot properly be made.

Mr. Braine: Does the hon. Gentleman not recall his answer to a Question on 30th November which showed that the Proportion of Gibraltarian applicants getting work in this country was far lower than the proportion of Spanish applicants? Does he not consider this sort of discrimination against Commonwealth Citizens to be most unfair, particularly at a time when Gibraltarians are under such intolerable pressures?

Mr. Fernyhough: The circumstances are not identical. Once a Commonwealth Citizen has a permit given to him he can, if he likes, remain here for ever. A Spaniard gets a permit for only 12 months and can be sent back, though it is possible for it to be reviewed. If the hon. Gentleman does not appreciate the difference between those who can come and stay here for ever and those who are granted vouchers for only 12 months, he is not facing up to the realities of the Situation.

Mr. George Jeger: Would my hon. Friend not agree that, since special concessions have been made for the unemployed of Malta who wish to come here, there is a precedent for making special concessions for Gibraltarians, especially when only a handful would want to come?

Mr. Fernyhough: We are looking closely at the possibility of a special allocation to dependent territories.

Municipal Bus Industry

Mr. Brooks: asked the Minister of Labour whether he will make a Statement on the dispute in the municipal bus industry, with particular reference to the restoration of national negotiating machinery in that industry.

Mr. Hattersley: As a result of direct negotiations between representatives of the employers' federation and the trade unions, an agreement was reached on


14th December which is leading to a return to normal working within the industry. The agreement covers improvements in the terms and conditions of employment and commits both sides to continuance of discussions within the National Joint Council. The agreement will, of course, be subject to review by the Government under the prices and incomes policy in the light of the report of the N.B.P.I. on pay and productivity in the industry which is due to be published this week.

Mr. Brooks: Is my hon. Friend aware of the widespread satisfaction that there will be that this damaging dispute is now ending? Would he clarify the extent to which local negotiations for payments above the national basic minimum will be constrained by the forthcoming report to which he has referred?

Mr. Hattersley: I am afraid that I cannot help my hon. Friend. We cannot make any comments about constraints which the report will impose until we have seen it.

Mr. Brooks: asked the Minister of Labour whether he will introduce legislation to protect the public from such disruption of essential municipal transport Services as has occurred throughout the country, including the Wirral peninsula, Cheshire, in recent weeks.

Mr. Hattersley: I do not think it would be right to consider this in advance of the report of the Royal Commission on Trade Unions and Employers' Associations.

Mr. Brooks: Is my hon. Friend aware that the bus strike which has affected my own constituency since l0th November is still on? In these winter months, is it not essential for the Government to ensure that the public, including old-age pensioners and school children, are not made the pawns of disputes of this character?

Mr. Hattersley: These are very complex issues. Even if we were to accept the contention that essential industries should be treated in this way, there would still be a dispute about what constituted an essential industry. I understand that the Passenger Transport Board is being examined by the Royal Com-

mission in the light of this definition. Therefore, it is not a decision which we should rush.

Mr. R. Carr: Will the hon. Gentleman convey to his right hon. Friend that the public are not prepared to go on tolerating the leisurely procedures of this Government in this matter and really demand action more quickly? Even now, is it not possible to ask the Royal Commission to produce a short interim report on one or two of the more essential but nevertheless easier matters on which it is to recommend?

Mr. Hattersley: I am sure that no one is suggesting that in December we should ask for an interim report when a full report is expected in the spring of next year.
Concerning public opinion, no Member of this House is more in touch with it than my right hon. Friend.

Development Areas (Apprentice Training)

Mr. Probert: asked the Minister of Labour what plans he has for encouraging apprentice training in development areas.

Mr. Hattersley: We are making a new Provision, through industrial training Boards, for grants to employers in development areas who provide additional off-the-job training facilities for apprentices or technicians or otherwise increase their numbers of such trainees. There are two alternative types of grant—a capital grant of 60 per cent. of the relevant costs of additional training places or per capita grants of £100 a year for up to five years in respect of any approved trainees in excess of the numbers under training on 1st January, 1968. Under the latter scheme, an additional per capita grant of £50 will be available in mid-1968 for employers who increase their number of approved trainees by then.

Mr. Probert: I thank my hon. Friend for that very welcome news. Can he say whether the grants which he has announced are additional to the training grants already available from the industrial training boards?

Mr. Hattersley: These grants from a totally new incentive for employers in


development areas. The new grants will be supplementary to the wide range of grants already available for industrial training boards, and will therefore afford a potent Stimulus for increased training in these important areas.

Mr. R. Carr: Will the hon. Gentleman confirm that the new grants are to be limited to apprentices and technicians, and are not available, for example, for adult retrainees?

Mr. Hattersley: I am sure the right hon. Gentleman knows that there is already a large apparatus of grants available for training in the development areas, including grants for some upgrading training of adults. My right hon. Friend the Home Secretary, when he was Chancellor of the Exchequer, announced a comprehensive addition to that range of grants. This is the penultimate item in that addition, and more is yet to come.

South-West

Mr. Mawby: asked the Minister of Labour what is the latest figure in total numbers and percentage for unemployment in the South-West; and how this compares with the equivalent month in 1962.

Mr. Fernyhough: The figures were 76,700 and 2·7 per cent. in November, 1967, and 27,900 and 2·2 per cent. in November, 1962.

Mr. Mawby: Is the Minister aware that this is a rise of 0·3 per cent. from one month to the next, and, at this rate of increase, is it not time that the Government took positive steps to check unemployment?

Mr. Fernyhough: The figures which I gave are for comparative months in 1962 and 1967.

Dr. John Dunwoody: Would not my hon. Friend agree that the real problem is not the total number of unemployed in this region, but the fact that a high proportion of them is concentrated in the far South-West, in the South-West Development Area?

Mr. Fernyhough: It is precisely because we recognise that that the grants have been made availble to the development areas.

Manpower Demand

Mr. Mawby: asked the Minister of Labour when he expects to have the report on manpower demand for the next 10 years; and if he will publish the report.

Mr. Fernyhough: The Government are as a matter of course examining future employment prospects in all industries as part of their assessment of developments in the economy generally, but no special report is being prepared on the next 10 years.

Mr. Mawby: Is the hon. Gentleman aware that most of the Opposition to the introduction of adult trained people arises from a sense of insecurity among those already engaged in industry? If an accurate study could be issued, surely it would reduce this sense of insecurity, and therefore allow for a much wider acceptance of adult, retrained employees?

Mr. Fernyhough: I readily accept that until we can remove the uncertainty we cannot get men to give up practices which they think are self-protecting.

Industrial Accidents

Dame Joan Vickers: asked the Minister of Labour, in view of the increased number of industrial accidents, what action he is taking to improve the service provided by his factory inspectors.

Mr. Fernyhough: A number of steps are being taken to strengthen the Inspectorate, including the establishment of a new class of construction inspector for inspection and advisory work in the construction industry; the recruitment of a number of fire officers for fire certification of premises under the Offices, Shops and Railway Premises Act, 1963, an increase in the staff of the specialist branches and the extension of the scheme started in 1965 under which Departmental officers are attached to the Inspectorate as assistant inspectors.

Dame Joan Vickers: I thank the hon. Gentleman for that reply. May I ask when the schemes will Start?

Mr. Fernyhough: Starts have been made in particular industries.

Mr. Pavitt: Will my hon. Friend take this opportunity to look at the whole


question of an occupational health service in reviewing the work of his Factory Inspectorate and its possible relationship to the Ministry of Health?

Mr. Fernyhough: We will look at it, yes.

Building Trade Operatives (Accidents)

Dame Joan Vickers: asked the Minister of Labour how many building trade operatives have been injured while working at their trade in 1966 and 1967.

Mr. Fernyhough: Thirty-seven thousand, five hundred and fifty eight in 1966. The experience of the first nine months of this year suggests that the total number of reported accidents will slightly increase, but that there is likely to be a significant and very welcome drop in the number of fatal accidents.

Dame Joan Vickers: Would not the Minister agree that that is a large number? Will he say how many people receive training before they undertake this type of work?

Mr. Fernyhough: I could not give the hon. Lady that figure without notice, but I assure her that it is an increasing number.

Adult Trainees

Mr. Kenneth Lewis: asked the Minister of Labour whether he will make a Statement on his talks with the Confederation of British Industry, the Trades Union Congress and nationalised industries on the wide acceptance of adult trainees.

Mr. Hattersley: My right hon. Friend met representatives of these bodies on November 7th, when they agreed that an increase in the training of adults for skilled occupations was necessary in the development areas.
Detailed information is now being assembled about the places and industries in the development areas where there is difficulty in arranging such training. When the information is available we will have discussions with the two sides of industry on the further action that can be taken.

Mr. Lewis: I heard only the tail end of that Answer. Will the Minister bear

in mind that discussions on this matter have gone on for long enough and that it is time the trade unions were convinced by the Government, or by someone, that these trainees are acceptable to industry?

Mr. Hattersley: The Government have made their attitude on this matter clear, and I am sure that the next few months should be characterised by negotiations, rather than by bellicose action which may imperil the progress which has been made.

Oral Answers to Questions — LAND REGISTRY

Mr. Boyd-Carpenter: asked the Attorney-General why, and by what authority, Her Majesty's Land Registry sent form B10A to a constituent of the right hon. Member for Kingston-upon-Thames informing him that unless a reply was received from him within 21 days an entry in respect of a bankruptcy of another Citizen would be made in the Land Registry in respect of his property; and if he will direct the Land Registry to desist from this practice.

The Attorney-General (Sir Elwyn Jones): The Chief Land Registrar is authorised by rules made under the Land Registration Act, 1925, to send form B10A to persons with names similar to that of a debtor involved in bankruptcy proceedings, in order to protect the interests of creditors by preventing a quick disposal of the debtor's assets. This is in my view a necessary protection. The Chief Land Registrar is, however, considering an amendment to the form, to make it clear that an erroneous entry can be cancelled even though no reply is received with 21 days.

Mr. Boyd-Carpenter: But is not the right hon. and learned Gentleman's sense of justice affronted by the action of a Government Department in sending a form to a Citizen, who may well be away or ill, telling him that if, within three weeks, he has not established that he is not the person concerned a highly damaging entry will be made against his property in the Land Registry?

The Attorney-General: I am well aware of the need for the interests of justice to be protected, and they include creditors whose interests should not be adversely affected by a quick transaction by the debtor. Concerning the damage


to the innocent person who may receive this form, which is by way of inquiry, I am satisfied that no harm could result to such a person. If harm did result, an indemnity would be due from the Department.

Oral Answers to Questions — ROLLS RAZOR LIMITED

Mr. Maddan: asked the Attorney-General whether he has now received the report of the Director of Public Prosecutions into the affairs of Rolls Razor Limited; and whether he will make a Statement.

The Attorney-General: The Director of Public Prosecutions has received the report from the police and is considering it in consultation with counsel. Counsel have advised that certain further inquiries should be made. These are now taking place and should be completed shortly. The Director will then be in a Position to decide what action, if any, should be taken.

Mr. Maddan: Will the right hon. and learned Gentleman urge counsel to complete their inquiries speedily? It is three and a half years since the Company went into voluntary liquidation and we were told six months ago that the Director of Public Prosecutions' report would be imminent. This seems to go on for a very long time, and there are many who hope that a conclusion will now be reached.

The Attorney-General: I am indeed aware of the need for urgency in this matter. As the hon. Member knows it is a complex matter involving investigation into the affairs of several companies over the course of a number of years. It is obviously in the public interest that a matter of this nature should be fully and carefully investigated. But I assure the hon. Member that I am bringing any pressure that is available to me to bear upon the need for speed in this matter.

Mr. Carlisle: Would not the Attorney-General agree that the length of time that these highly complicated inquiries take is a matter of great concern to many people? What steps has he in mind to improve both the efficiency and the number of people involved in the fraud squad?

The Attorney-General: The problem is not lack of members in the fraud squad,

so much as the complexity of the transactions that are being investigated. Not more than a given number of minds can helpfully apply themselves to the problem, but I am aware of the anxiety at the delay in proceedings of this kind.

Mr. Paget: Would my right hon. and learned Friend agree that swiftness is of the essence of criminal justice and that a delay of three and a half years is a terrible hardship.

The Attorney-General: I agree that swiftness is important, but so also is thoroughness, both to the public and possibly to those who are liable to be charged.

Oral Answers to Questions — LAW OF CONTEMPT

Mr. Roebuck: asked the Attorney-General whether he will now advise the appointment of a Royal Commission to examine the law of contempt, with particular reference to its application to the Press and broadcasting.

The Attorney-General: I am not aware of any general criticism of the law of contempt in relation to the administration of justice. However, there have been criticisms of the provisions of the Tribunals of Inquiry Act, 1921, which apply the provisions of the law of contempt to proceedings under that Act, and the Government is considering a recent Press Council booklet on this subject.

Mr. Roebuck: Is my right hon. and learned Friend aware that news that the Government are considering this matter is very welcome? There has been confusion about this aspect of the law for many decades, and can he acknowledge that very serious consideration will be given to Clearing the matter up? Can my right hon. and learned Friend also say to what extent his patient examination of the law and his exposition of it at the time of the Aberfan inquiry has contributed to this development?

The Attorney-General: I do not want to enter into that much disputed matter at this moment, without notice, but this aspect is being considered. There is no doubt that the law of contempt applies to proceedings before tribunals of inquiry, and this aspect of the matter is being considered.

Sir P. Rawlinson: Would the Attorney-General not agree that, leaving aside the Tribunals of Inquiry Act, it would be very poor if we got to a position in the law of contempt where there was trial by television or trial by Press? It is most important that fair trials should not in any way be endangered by comment.

The Attorney-General: I entirely agree. As I said in my original Answer, I am not aware of any criticism of the law of contempt in that sphere.

Mr. Alexander W. Lyon: Would my right hon. and learned Friend agree that, though there may not be criticism of the law, there is a good deal of confusion about the exact extent of the law of contempt and that it might be cleared up quite simply by a Statement from the Court of Appeal, or even the Lord Chief Justice, about its limits?

The Attorney-General: With respect, I think that the principles relating to the law of contempt are quite clear. Generally speaking, proceedings are now brought only through the Attorney-General. They take place before the Lord Chief Justice and two judges of the High Court. I should have thought that both the law and its machinery, particularly in the matter of the administration of justice, are satisfactory.

Oral Answers to Questions — SETTLED LAND ACT

Sir D. Walker-Smith: asked the Attorney-General whether he has considered the observations of the Court of Appeal in England versus Public Trustee as to the desirability of amending the Settled Land Act, 1925, so that notice of a proposed sale of settled land by the tenant for life should be given to the other beneficiaries under the settlement; and if he will seek to amend the law accordingly.

The Attorney-General: I am aware of these observations, but I do not think it would be desirable to amend the law on this subject in advance of the general study of the law relating to Settlements which the Law Commission has stated in its Second Annual Report it hopes to initiate in due course.

Sir D. Walker-Smith: As there may no doubt be many other cases, especially

in this inflationary age, in which an injustice is done to remainder-men and a result brought about which, in the words of Lord Justice Wynn, Parliament would not have wished, does not the right hon. and learned Gentleman accept that there is an element of urgency in this matter?

The Attorney-General: There is an element that calls for consideration, but the subject is a very complex one. It is much better, in my view, that there should be a general review of the Settled Land Act rather than an attempt to deal with an isolated part of it.

Oral Answers to Questions — LEGAL AID

Sir D. Walker-Smith: asked the Attorney-General if he will introduce regulations under the Legal Aid and Advice Act, 1949, to enable the Legal Aid Fund to forgo recovery of costs, in whole or in part, from legally assisted plaintiffs, where it is judged to be in the business interest of the fund to do so.

The Attorney-General: Generally I do not think it can be in the business interest of the Legal Aid Fund to forgo its Charge on property recovered or preserved. If there is evidence to the contrary I will be glad to examine it.

Sir D. Walker-Smith: Will the Attorney-General accept that this may well arise if it inhibits the conclusion of a realistic settlement which may in the long run be beneficial to both parties, and save the Fund costs being thrown away in subsequent litigation?

The Attorney-General: I am willing to look at any facts to support that proposition. The basic principle of the Act is that the legally assisted litigant should be in no better position than the litigant who is paying his own costs, but I will be very glad to look at any Information which the right hon. and learned Gentleman cares to bring to my notice.

Oral Answers to Questions — CHURCH COMMISSIONERS

Education

Mr. Peter Mills: asked the hon. and learned Member for Brigg as Second Church Estates Commissioner what plans the Church Commissioners have for extending Church of England secondary


education and primary school education; and if he will make a Statement.

Mr. E. L. Mallalieu: The extension of Church of England secondary and primary school education is a matter outside the Jurisdiction of the Church Commissioners.

Mr. Peter Mills: asked the hon. and learned Member for Brigg as Second Church Estates Commissioner, whether tae Church Commissioners will release large sums of money in view of local reorganisation projects for the furtherance of church schools, particularly secondary education.

Mr. E. L. Mallalieu: The Church Commissioners are empowered by Measure of the Church Assembly to make payments from their general fund to the Central Board of Finance for the improvement or extension of Church of England schools. These payments must not exceed £1 million in total over a period of 25 years ending in 1983. Subject to this limitation and to the availability of money the Commissioners make payments when requested by the Central Board of Finance.

Mr. Mills: Is it not time that the Church Commissioners showed a little more interest in education? If they really believe in Church education in primary and secondary schools, they should seek to allocate a far larger share of money for this work.

Mr. Mallalieu: The Church Commissioners have to take an interest in those duties put upon them by Statute, and I think it is generally admitted that they show great interest in these subjects.

ECONOMIC SITUATION

The Prime Minister (Mr. Harold Wilson): Mr. Speaker, with permission I should like to make a Statement.
I feel it right, before the House rises for the Recess, to make a full Statement of the Government's intentions about the way in which we are now engaged in deciding on the measures necessary to ensure that industry, trade, agriculture— indeed, the country as a whole—take full advantage of the opportunity presented by devaluation.
The Government have made clear that, in order to achieve a progressive and massive swing in our balance of payments over the next two years, a substantial diversion of resources will be needed to exports, to import replacement and to investment.
The Statement of my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary on 20th November outlined the first package of measures directed to this end.
The Government have made clear that progressively up to the Budget, and indeed at any time afterwards, when this becomes necessary, steps will be taken to ensure that home demand, including Government expenditure, is not allowed to develop to a point where the necessary shift of resources to the priority purposes of earning a payments surplus is for one moment endangered.
As my right hon. Friend the Chancellor made clear, the intention is to ensure beyond all doubt that as exports, import saving and investment build up, the resources will be available to meet them.
It is our intention to maintain economic growth and rising employment, taking progressively the measures needed to shift the emphasis from a consumer-led expansion to an export-led expansion. At the same time, it will be the determination of Her Majesty's Government not to allow that steady expansion, as it develops over the next year and into 1969, to degenerate into a Situation of inflation and excessive pressure on resources and capacity.
As the policy develops through the period of the Estimates, the Budget and subsequently, it will mean reductions in the growth of personal expenditure and reductions in the growth of public expenditure. On personal expenditure, the success of the Government's prices and incomes policy is of crucial importance. While I cannot anticipate my right hon. Friend's Budget Statement or any other measures which may be needed to restrain consumption, the severity of such restraint will clearly depend on the Cooperation which the Government receive in implementing their prices and incomes policy.
So far as public expenditure is concerned, the House will be aware, through long experience, that expenditure programmes take several years to mature and that decisions taken at any moment


of time may have little impact on immediate Estimates. But decisions taken now can in certain spending areas have a growing effect in the second year and a decisive effect in the third and subsequent years, provided that the decisions are taken now.
The examination of spending programmes which this involves is being tackled in a mood of urgency. While I should like to have given the House all the necessary details before the Recess, hon. Members will, I think, agree, in view of the important nature of the expenditure areas to be considered, that it would be wrong to press on with over-hasty decisions without considering all the implications. Full details will be given to the House and decisions which have to be taken will be taken in time to govern the 1968–69 Estimates, as well as subsequent Estimates.
But I should tell the House this: first, we are not approaching this expenditure review, whether in respect of home or overseas expenditure, on the basis of candle ends, or simply on the basis of minor administrative economies, though we shall not, of course, neglect any opportunities here. Neither are we looking for prospects of under-spending or the shifting of expenditure from one financial year to another. We are bringing under stringent review all major areas of policy, both at home and overseas, where substantial expenditure is involved.
Secondly, no area of expenditure can be regarded as sacrosanct for the purposes of the searching examination we are making; no spending commitment whether inherited three years ago, or incurred since.
Thirdly, it will cover local government expenditure as well as central Government expenditure.
Fourthly, as I have made clear, the review will cover defence and overseas expenditure as well as home civil expenditure.
The review as a whole is being related to what is essential in expenditure here at home, and to what is appropriate at a time when we have been, and are, reassessing Britain's role in the World. This must involve overseas policy.
In this connection, the Government have completed their examination of the

question of the supply of defence equipment to South Africa and have decided that their policy on this matter, namely to conform to the Security Council Resolution of 18th June, 1964, remains unchanged.
I should add that I have the authority of the whole Cabinet categorically to repudiate as inaccurate reported Statements about the position taken by the Cabinet as a whole, by a Cabinet Committee which met a week earlier, and also about the position taken by the Prime Minister and other individual Ministers.
When, next month, the House is given the results of our examination of all the expenditure programmes—and, indeed, throughout the further development of all our policies—I intend to ensure that the totality of decisions taken will be fair as between Citizen and Citizen; that while everyone must bear burdens the burdens will be fairly shared; and that, while established assumptions and traditional spending commitments will have to be called in question and, in appropriate cases, sacrificed, the questioning and the sacrifices equally will be fairly borne.
At the end of the day the Government will be responsible for achieving a fair balance, whether of economic or political sacrifice, and submitting it to this House. They will then call on the House to take its full responsibility in endorsing it.

Mr. Heath: That slob of wet blancmange hardly sounded like the smack of firm government. The intention of the general economic Statement, which the Leader of the House told us on Thursday would be made only in the event of an emergency, is very clear. It is to wrap up and disguise a Statement about South African arms in an attempt to preserve a spurious unity in the Cabinet.
Seldom can the House have heard a general economic Statement so flatulent and platitudinous as this has been. It can only do more harm than good—[HON.
MEMBERS: "A question."]—and will further undermine any confidence which
is left in the Administration—

Mr. Whitaker: On a point of Order. Is this question time or debate?

Mr. Speaker: The Chair usually allows a little latitude to the Leader of the Opposition.

Mr. Heath: It can only make the Chancellor's task more difficult. In a critical Situation, when the world is waiting for a Statement of Government action, we expected something more —

Mr. Faulds: Can't they find better than him?

Hon. Members: Name.

Mr. Speaker: Order. Hon. Members must contain themselves.

Mr. Heath: —we expected more than general Statements of pious intent.
I want to put two questions to the Prime Minister. Does his Statement mean that the South African Government's request for arms for self-defence has been turned down by Her Majesty's Government? [HON. MEMBERS: "Yes."] Has it been turned down? [HON. MEMBERS: "Yes"] The Prime Minister said that the policy remains the same, but has this request been turned down? Has it been turned down only for the present? Is it to be reconsidered in the policy review, including overseas policy, which the Prime Minister has included in his Statement? May we have clear and specific answers to those questions?

The Prime Minister: Yes, Sir. I will not compete with the right hon. Gentleman in such flights of Parliamentary oratory as "blancmange" and "flatulent", because we are concerned this afternoon with important issues of policy, and the right hon. Gentleman, as usual, failed to face up to it.
First of all, on the economic Statement that I have made, the right hon. Gentleman could use his time better—[HON. MEMBERS: "Answer."] He will get the answer, but I am going to—[HON. MEMBERS: "Answer"] He will get the answer; I am commenting on some of his Statements, which as usual, of course, will be taken outside as a support for those who want to undermine Sterling.
The right hon. Gentleman would spend his time better preaching to his friends in industry and telling them to do what we say here—go out and get those export orders.
Secondly, with regard to the right hon. Gentleman's Statement about my right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer, the examination on which we have begun, which will be reported to the

House, will be the greatest possible help to the Chancellor of the Exchequer. Since the right hon. Gentleman has repeatedly called for cuts in expenditure, I confidently expect his full support for every measure of Government economy which we will put to the House.
With regard to South Africa—[HON. MEMBERS: "At last."] I have got to this answer much more quickly than the right hon. Gentleman got to the question. With regard to the right hon. Gentleman's question about South Africa, when I said that the policy of adhering to the line taken by the Security Council would not be changed that meant that this arms order will not be supplied and that we are not changing the policy. When the right hon. Gentleman asked if this would be reconsidered, I made it clear in my Statement that this, in view of the great public interest in this question, is an item of policy which we have considered ahead of the general package on expenditure which will be reported to the House.

Mr. Heath: Does the Prime Ministers last Statement mean that this request for arms cannot again be considered under the overseas policy review? May we be quite clear about that?

The Prime Minister: Yes, Sir. That is exactly what it means.

Mr. Thorpe: Is the Prime Minister aware that there will be delayed relief that he has rejected the advice which he has been receiving from many quarters that this country can maintain those principles which we hold provided only that they are not expensive? But is he aware that his Statement today adds up only to a series of good intentions and no hard policy? May I ask him whether we will be considering cancelling the F111 contract, withdrawing from the Persian Gulf, cutting tariffs and boosting home agriculture?

The Prime Minister: I am aware, as the right hon. Gentleman suggests, that I have only announced that we are engaged in this very searching expenditure review. I think—I hope—that the House will agree that the areas to be examined are so important, both at home and abroad, that we must give them very thorough consideration and report to the House as early as possible.
I will not indicate what the outcome will be, but no area of expenditure, including those referred to by the right hon. Gentleman, is sacrosanct in the sense that it will not be subject to the most searching review. As to the outcome of the review, it would be wrong for me to try to anticipate it until we have reached our conclusions.

Mr. John Hynd: In resisting this pressure for the sale of arms to South Africa, will my right hon. Friend bear in mind that the figure of £200 million—or whatever the cost to this country—should be set against the infinitely greater sacrifices which this country made to defend principles in Europe only a few years ago? Will he seek economies in other areas where we are spending even greater amounts of money in the face of only Potential dangers?

The Prime Minister: As I say, these are very difficult matters. We have considered all the implications, economic and international, and this is the decision which we have reached.

Mr. Winnick: Is my right hon. Friend aware that there will be great satisfaction within the Parliamentary Labour Party and in the Labour Party outside that arms are not to be sent to South Africa, and that there is no change in policy? Is he aware that there is a great feeling of contempt for those hon. Members opposite who want to sell arms to a Nazi-like State which bases itself on police terror and brutality in Order to keep going?

The Prime Minister: This decision is one which was taken many years ago, in Opposition. Indeed, it was taken in the time of my predecessor as Leader of the Labour Party. We have considered this and we have often debated it in the House, and I will not join at this stage, unless I am tempted too much, in saying what I think of the policy of right hon. Gentlemen opposite in this matter.

Mr. Selwyn Lloyd: What did the right hon. Gentleman mean by the phrase "political sacrifices"?

The Prime Minister: Simply that it is not possible to review any substantial area of Government expenditure—the right hon. and learned Gentleman has great experience of this—if cuts are

made, without trampling on doctrines cherished by one party or another, or by one group or another, inside or outside the House, and that, if there is to be a successful attack on this problem of public expenditure, it is inevitable that some political doctrines—at this stage, I cannot indicate which they are likely to be—will be sacrificed, and that, just as there will be economic sacrifices, there will have to be sacrifices of certain ideological considerations.

Mr. Paget: Would my right hon. Friend tell me how democracy is served, or how the United Nations is served, by providing that South Africa should be armed by France instead of by Britain and by adding Simonstown to the Suez Canal as the property of what is becoming the Franco-Arab bloc, hostile to this country?

The Prime Minister: We are not handing the South African question over to France: we are carrying out the policy which we have announced, which was laid down by the resolution of the Security Council. If other countries decide not to follow that resolution, that is a matter for them and not for us. We have decided our own policy in this matter.

Mr. Marten: The right hon. Gentleman said that no area is sacrosanct. How does he Square that with the reference in his television broadcast to housing, schools and hospitals?

The Prime Minister: All areas will be reviewed. I have said that, and it includes all those areas. At the end of the day we will take decisions in accordance with our priorities and principles.

Mr. Barnett: Would my right hon. Friend inform hon. Gentlemen opposite that no price is too high to pay for one's principles? Will he also expose the fallacies contained in the point that is constantly made about the price of this particular arms deal with South Africa, in that we already expect to see full employment next year, including in the companies which would be supplying these arms; so that, in a sense, will not this be nothing other than a marginal cost to this country?

The Prime Minister: I refuse to believe that this country can pay its way abroad


only on the basis of shipments of this kind. The fact that right hon. Gentlemen opposite reached the conclusion in 1964 that, under their régime, we could pay our way only by shipments of this kind, does not provide a precedent which we want to follow.

Sir D. Walker-Smith: Would the right hon. Gentleman now identify the group of nations, to which he referred on Thursday, which sells arms to South Africa ii breach of the United Nations resolution? What proportion of them would, in any event, be in a position—of those who took the decision—to sell any arms? Is the policy of this country now to make the economic decisions of Britain dependent on the views of other countries which will not suffer the economic loss flowing from the decision, and in some cases may benefit from it?

The Prime Minister: The group to which I referred contained those which had dissociated themselves from the Security Council resolution. I would want notice of the question before giving the exact list, because I would want to make sure that it was exhaustive; but I would be glad to make it available to the House.

Mr. Whitaker: Is my right hon. Friend aware that the Cabinet's decision on this South African matter will be welcomed by all who believe that Britain is something greater than a nation of shop-keepers? Will he also bear in mind that the ancestors of his Lancashire constituents were proud to make the necessary financial sacrifices to end the slave trade?

The Prime Minister: I agree with my hon. Friend and I referred to that matter in a debate on a similar issue when the House discussed Rhodesia after the H.M.S. "Tiger" agreement about a year ago.

Mr. Boyd-Carpenter: Before deciding to turn down this immensely valuable South African order, which would have brought lifeblood to our shipyards, did the right hon. Gentleman seek assurances from the French Government—the French also being a member of the Security Council—that they would not fill such Orders which were refused? If he did not seek or obtain such assurances, what Practical effect does his decision have?

The Prime Minister: We did not, of course, seek these assurances. I have said that we have decided our line in relation to the Security Council. It must be for France and other countries to decide theirs. I do not feel that, in other matters, where profits can be earned for particular activities—for example, from the sale of drugs—it would be the right answer for us to say, "We had better sell these noxious drugs. If we do not do so someone else will sell them". We have our Standards to maintain. Other countries must judge theirs.

Mr. Wyatt: Would my right hon. Friend explain why it is all right to sell large quantities of arms to Saudi Arabia, where slavery still flourishes, and to Spain and Portugal from time to time, but not to South Africa, although the United Nations' resolution is not mandatory?

The Prime Minister: I agree with my hon. Friend that this is not a mandatory resolution of the United Nations. That is certainly true. These questions have to be decided in accordance with their merits and the principles which we are trying to follow in these matters, as I explained a moment ago. We do not, for example, supply arms to Portugal for use in her colonial territories.
This is a quite clear policy on the part of Her Majesty's Government. I think that it is justified and, for the same reason, the announcement which I have made today merely reiterates our Position, which is right.

Mr. Hugh Fraser: In view of the absence today of any serious Statement as to what the Government propose to do, would the right hon. Gentleman seriously consider the recall of Parliament earlier than 22nd January so that the Government may make a Statement about their plans, in view of the uncertainty in industry, among trade unions and on the foreign exchange market; since, after 30 days, there has been no serious Statement made by the Government?

The Prime Minister: Serious Statements have been made. However, the right hon. Gentleman's question is a fair one. We will get on with this review as quickly as is humanly possible, having regard to the very big issues which are involved. Certainly, if it is possible to make a Statement, we would regard it as


right to recommend the recall of Parliament rather than to make any such Statement during the Recess, when Parliament was not sitting.
I cannot promise that it will be possible —there are very big international as well as domestic implications involved in this —to complete this at an earlier date than the end of the Recess, but if it is possible we would certainly recommend the recall of Parliament.

Mr. Mikardo: While warmly joining with those who have welcomed what my right hon. Friend said about no arms for South Africa, may I ask him to assure us that, in considering other possible changes, he will not reject any merely on the grounds that they have been consistently proposed to him from these benches and brusquely rejected in the past by the Treasury Bench and the benches opposite?

The Prime Minister: I am grateful to my hon. Friend for that helpful Suggestion. I must make it clear—and this must have stood out in everything I have been saying and in everything that my right hon. Friend is doing—that we shall neither preclude economies merely because they have been suggested and rejected in the past, nor shall we reject economies because my hon. Friends put Motions on the Order Paper saying that certain areas must remain sacrosanct.

Mr. Tapsell: Would the Prime Minister tell the House whether revelation to an unauthorised person of discussions held in Cabinet, or Cabinet committee, would constitute a breach of the Privy Councillor's oath or of the Official Secrets Act?

The Prime Minister: These must be matters for my right hon. and learned Friend the Attorney-General, certainly so far as the Act is concerned. I have already made it clear that the Statements which I read over the weekend—and which, I understand, other hon. Members have read—have been categorically repudiated as being incorrect by the whole Cabinet.

Mr. Sheldon: While congratulating my right hon. Friend on his Statement, may I ask him to say what action he is contemplating in an effort to make sure that he has international support for his

action, bearing in mind that the demand for arms will not be stopped by our refusal to give them but that South Africa may be Shopping in many other countries?

The Prime Minister: This must be a matter for continuous international discussion through the United Nations and elsewhere. However, in view of the great interest in this question, it was thought right, as I have said, that we should settle our policy on it; and our policy is to continue the line which we have so far taken.

Mr. Hastings: Is it not a fact that the U.N. resolution concerning arms to South Africa is not even mandatory? Has this been taken into account?

The Prime Minister: I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman. If he had been listening a few moments ago, he would have heard that the same question was put by my hon. Friend the Member for Bosworth (Mr. Wyatt), and I confirmed that it is not mandatory. However, that does not mean that we do not have an Obligation to consider and then to decide our action upon it. Rather than wait for others to decide their policy, we have considered it and have decided ours.

Mr. Molloy: Is my right hon. Friend aware that this issue is not merely confined to this House or our nation, but that millions of ordinary people all over the world, and especially in oppressed countries, will welcome what has been said in the House this afternoon, and will deplore the attitude of the right hon. Gentleman the Leader of the Opposition, who purports to know the price of everything and confirms that he knows the value of nothing?

The Prime Minister: No, Sir. I do not think that very much interest will be taken in the line of right hon. Gentlemen opposite in these matters, but this was, as my hon. Friend mentioned, one big consideration. It is a very difficult decision: I do not pretend that it is not. I am not ashamed of the fact that on his side we have been divided on the matter—[HON. MEMBERS; "Oh"] I am not ashamed of that— [HON. MEMBERS: "Oh."] I said that I am not ashamed of the fact—[HON. MEMBERS: "Oh."] I said that the whole Cabinet denies those particular stories—


[HON. MEMBERS: "Oh"] I am not ashamed of the fact that there are divisions on this side of the House on this matter—not ashamed at all. I would be ashamed to be a member of the party opposite, united and in their own way.

Sir C. Osborne: The Prime Minister said that burdens would have to be shared by all. Will he tell the House and the country how big those burdens will be; how soon they will be imposed; how soon the people will be told of the burdens? If we refuse to export to all the countries with whom we disagree, will it not bring mass unemployment and bread rationing nearer?

The Prime Minister: The hon. Member will recognise from my answer that, as I said, my right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer must continue to see that the resources are available on a developing basis to switch from home consumption to exports. Therefore, the first step will be the announcement of expenditure economies to which I referred and, as I have said, this will be at the earliest possible time, either when the House resumes or even on an earlier recall. These are the public expenditure reviews. As I said, I cannot anticipate my right hon. Friend's Budget Statement, but this must be a continuing development because, obviously, the whole switch from home consumption, private or public, to exports, does not take place all at once. So I would say that the two stages the hon. Gentleman should watch for are the economy in expenditure Statement and, of course, the Budget.

Mr. Dickens: While I warmly welcome my right hon. Friend's Statement on arms to South Africa, will he, in making this forthcoming review, bear in mind that the reality facing the country is that we would have no deficit on balance of payments were it not for heavy foreign exchange costs on military spending and the net outflow of private investment to advanced industrial countries abroad?

The Prime Minister: Yes, Sir. Again, I am grateful to my hon. Friend. I said that the burdens will be fairly shared, fairly borne. It will be for the House to decide whether our conception of this is fair in the view of the House as well as of the Government, but it also means not only that areas of defence expendi-

ture, home and overseas, must come under review, but so must every item of home expenditure. My hon. Friend must be prepared to find that there are some cuts that are not as acceptable to him as the one he keeps on urging on the Front Bench.

Several Hon. Members: rose—

Mr. Speaker: Order. We must move on.

SOUTH AFRICA (ARMS SUPPLIES)

Mr. Hastings: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. I seek your leave to move the Adjournment of the House under Standing Order No. 9, for the purpose of discussing a specific and important matter which should have urgent consideration, namely:
 the refusal of the Prime Minister to allow the sale of British military equipment to South Africa for her external defence, and the serious effect of this decision on the balance of payments.
I hold that this matter is specific because the extent of the order for ships, aircraft and anti-aircraft missiles is now known to be between £150 million and £250 million. It is specific in the sense that it is equally well known that, if we fail to meet the order, others will.
It is important and urgent, first, because at a time when the Government have just devalued the £ for the express purposes of increasing exports, this decision may well result in further loss of foreign confidence and a fresh run on the £; and, secondly, because the decision may equally result, and before very long, in further unemployment in this country.
We are about to go into recess, Mr. Speaker, and in these grave circumstances I submit to you that we should have an opportunity in the House to discuss this issue.

Mr. Speaker: The hon. Gentleman asks leave to move the Adjournment of the House for the purpose of discussing a specific and important matter which he thinks should have urgent consideration, namely,
 the refusal of the Prime Minister to allow the sale of British military equipment to South Africa for her external defence, and the


serious effect of this decision on the balance of payments.
I have given serious consideration to this matter. I am satisfied that the matter raised by the hon. Gentleman is proper to be discussed under Standing Order No. 9. Does the hon. Gentleman have the leave of the House?

The leave of the House having been given—

Mr. Speaker: The Motion for the Adjournment of the House will now stand over until the commencement of public business tomorrow, when a debate on the matter will take place for three hours. This is as provided for under the terms of the revised Standing Order No. 9 as agreed to by the House on 14th November, 1967.

Mr. Heath: Further to your Ruling, Mr. Speaker, may I ask the Leader of the House to take note that, in these circumstances, we should like to have discussions through the usual Channels about the rest of tomorrow's business?

Mr. Speaker: That is a matter for the House, and not for Mr. Speaker.

Mr. English: On a point of Order, Mr. Speaker. Will the scope of the discussion tomorrow be wide enough to include the other matters in the Prime Ministers Statement?

Mr. Speaker: The debate will be on the subject matter raised by the hon. Member for Mid-Bedfordshire, (Mr. Hastings), who sought leave to move the Adjournment of the House.

The Motion stood over under Standing Order No. 9 (Adjournment on specific and important matter that should have urgent consideration) until the beginning of public business tomorrow.

BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE (ERSKINE BRIDGE TOLLS BILL)

Ordered,
That the Third Reading of the Erskine Bridge Tolls Bill may be taken immediately after the consideration of the Bill notwithstanding the practice of this House as to the interval between the stages of such a Bill.—[Mr. Crossman.]

THAMES LIGHTERAGE INDUSTRY

4.8 p.m.

Mr. Alan Lee Williams: I beg to move,
That this House deplores the decline of the Thames lighterage industry, regrets the under-utilisation of the commercial potentialities of the River Thames, and calls upon the Government to establish an inquiry into the Thames lighterage industry to ascertain the future organisation and contribution of the industry in a co-ordinated transport policy for the River Thames within the projected port authority.
I should first, make it clear to the House that I am a Freeman of the Company of Watermen and Lightermen, but have no financial interest in the industry.

Mr. Speaker: Order. Will hon. Members leave the Chamber quietly.

Mr. Williams: As every hon. Member knows, the greatest river highway in the country and, in my view, the principal highway, is the River Thames. The growth of the British economy can be traced by the growth of tonnage handled upon the River Thames. Historically, as early as Roman times, and certainly as far back as the 13th Century, the country's principal highway was the River Thames. Previous Parliaments have been concerned about the position of the watermen and lightermen. Respective Governments have been forced to take legislative action. The Acts if 1514 and 1555 and the foundation of the Watermen's Company in 1556 give testimony to this fact.
As early as the 16th Century the watermen, as opposed to the lightermen, were already feeling the competition of the coaches—in other words, the roads. The watermen were quite undaunted by a failure of their Bill in 1600 to resist the use of coaches. John Taylor, commonly known as the "Water Poet", and himself an active waterman, put it rather well in 1622. He was, incidentally, a prolific writer of the time and he described accurately the conditions of watermen during that period. He wrote in 1622:
 Carroaches, coaches, jades and flander's manes,
Doe rob us of our shares, our wares, our fares,
Against the ground we stand and knocke our heeles,
Whilest all our profit runnes away on wheeles ".


For some years after the introduction of coaches by the Dutchman Booned they were used by only a relatively small number of people, but the year 1634 saw the growth of hackney carriages which plied for hire in the streets. The water-men at that time petitioned the King in Council by pointing out that their existence was threatened by this rival means of transport and that the King's Majesty would thereby be deprived of many useful and able subjects who always proved helpful to man the Navy in times of war. The Privy Council became completely beguiled by those specious arguments and issued a proclamation prohibiting hackney carriages in London except for journeys for at least three miles outside London.
Right up to the 18th Century, the watermen fought every proposal for a bridge. It was not until the 18th Century that the first bridge was built, and subsequently they fought against every bridge which was built It is certainly not in that spirit that I wish to introduce my Motion this afternoon, because the rôle of watermen has been greatly reduced by progress over the years and they are now mainly responsible for the mooring and unmooring of ships. It is the lighterage industry about which I wish to speak, but one has to mention watermen when speaking of the lightermen because they arc all part of the same Company.
The golden age for lightermen was reached in 1795. Shipping was dependent on lighters and barges, but it is significant that even in 1795 the coasting trade of the port was greater than the foreign trade. This is certainly not true today and is one of the main reasons why the industry has found itself in difficulties.
Even before the challenge of the railways and modern roads, there were signs of what could only be, in terms of years, a decline in the industry. At one time, the Thames enjoyed the Services of 85,000 barges. Today, in 1967, the figure is 4,650 barges. These figures do not include the punts, sloops and cutters that have long gone out of existence.
In addition, the advent of the various docks—the West India Docks, Surrey Commercial Docks and the Royal Group of Docks, for example—has dealt successive blows to the lighterage industry. The growth of the docks was supported

by the merchants and the shipowners. All these actions threatened the lighterage industry fax before modern times.
The lightermen fought fiercely. At one time they forced the Houses of Parliament to set up a Select Committee to resist the establishment of the docks. Subsequently, however, they lost, and rightly so, because they were fighting on the wrong side of progress. Eventually, all the main docks were established.
The lightermen obtained, however, an exceedingly important concession which has subsequently become known as the free water clause. I certainly ask my hon. Friend the Minister of State to ensure that his right hon. Friend makes sure that in any alteration in the authority of the Port of London, the free water clause will be maintained. To get it altered would, in fact, require the permission of Parliament.
Easily the most important part of the Thames lighterage business consists in conveying goods from ships in the docks or lower reaches of the river to public wharves and warehouses situated near the heart of London. This again raises the problem acutely, because there is no doubt that the wharves and public warehouses in the Lower and Upper Pool are gradually handling less tonnage, and some of them are closing.
The emphasis is now on the lower reaches of the Thames. Perhaps this was brought forcibly home to the industry by the closure of Brentford Dock, to which I should like presently to refer, as well as by the closure of various railway docks at Battersea, Blackfriars, Poplar, Victoria Dock, Canning Town, Charlton, Chelsea, Nine Elms and Deptford. All those decisions have had an effect on the volume of the lighterage industry. No doubt, the case for closing many of those depots can be justified on economic grounds, but the sad fact is that the traffic previously carried by lighter or barge is now being carried by road transport.
The most tragic example that one can find is in respect of the closure of Brentford Dock, because that dock had all the potentialities of a terminal exit point at the westward end of the Thames which would allow cargoes to go all the way through London by water without going on to the congested roads and eventually


feeding through to the South-West and the Midlands.
I should like to give some practical examples of what that means in terms of social cost. About 350 tons of coal a day used to go by river from Chelsea Basin to a factory at Battersea. It is now transported by road, and many trucks and many journeys are required to get it to its destination. Covent Garden, as everyone knows, is being moved to a new site at Nine Elms, and yet to date there is no proper Provision for waterside activity, either for small coasting ships or for lighters. This is something which, I hope, even at this stage, my hon. Friend will examine closely.
Paradoxically, it is the Corporation of the City of London, steeped in ancient history, which has shown the way by the building of a modern refuse exit point at Cannon Street. So attractively is it built that people do not know that it is a refuse depot. From there, how-ever, rubbish from the Corporation of London area finds its way out to the lower reaches by a barge which carries 300 tons at one go. It would take 20 trucks—and 15-tonners at that—to take it by road through the congested streets of the City of London.
Another example is the rundown and the eventual selling-off of the stock owned by River Lighterage Limited. This concern used to be a partial subsidiary of the North Thames Gas Board, which held 50 per cent. of the shares. The Company was allowed to run down and was eventually sold. Today, over 200 tons of coal, which used to be transported by barge, is taken by road from Becton to Bromley gas works, causing congestion and havoc in that area. Seventy thousand tons of coal from Honnerton Tip to Hackney power Station now also go by road, taking 30 lorries per day on 60 trips to get through London's crowded streets.
The lighterage industry is particularly fitted to handle in large quantities meat and provisions such as butter and eggs from the Commonwealth and South American trade. In fact, in the pre-war years it handled the majority of these imports. I regret to have to report again that a considerable amount of this side of the industry's work has been lost to the

roads. I must say in all honesty that the trade has in many respects been rather slow to react to change.
For example, it is only recently that it has introduced refrigerated barges as opposed to insulated barges, although these now are appearing on the Thames in greater numbers. Refrigerated barges could so easily tie up with the refrigerated railway freight terminals. Barges also excel in the transport of bulk commodities, such as grain, sulphur, groundnuts, ballast, coal, oil and petroleum, and dangerous commodities such as acid and explosives.
I believe that, with the growth of containerisation, as it is called, the lighterage industry, if it wishes to adapt and change to modern conditions, could build lighters and barges which could take full advantage of Containers. Containers could be loaded directly into a barge. This requires considerable sums of money and a lot of investment.
In this respect, I should like to refer to a letter written by the Association of Master Lightermen and Barge Owners to the Transport and General Workers' Union and to the Watermen's Union in respect of investment grants. The background to this is that investment grants were recently withdrawn from this industry. The letter from the Association reads thus:
 As you will appreciate the Ministry of Transport's distinction is highly arbitrary and appears designed specifically to exclude normal lighterage Operations which must of course involve travelling from the Enclosed Docks to riverside destinations. It quite ignores the geography of the Port of London with its five docks and chain of river wharves. It seems incredible that we are regarded as an essential part of port Operations for the purposes of the Dock Labour Scheme but merely a competitive method of transport when Government grants are involved.
The effect of the withdrawal of investment grants will undoubtedly be to make the lighterage industry slow to respond to change, because, in my view, with the possible development in the next 20 to 50 years of the techniques of the hovercraft and hydrofoil, considerable sums of money will be needed for the lighterage industry to respond to modern needs. It could be said that, if it is intended to run down the lighterage industry, if it is intended to develop the lower reaches of the Thames and ignore the potentialities of some of the things which I have


been mentioning, clearly the withdrawl of investment grants makes sense; but, if not, it is nonsense.
Reference must be made also to the possibility of Thames barrier. There are differences in the industry as to how such a barrier would affect the commercial potentialities in the upper part of the stream. I think that a Thames barrier would help and not hinder the lighterage industry. I believe that the majority of people who reflect on this will come to the same conclusion. In fact, it would bring the waterman back into his own, because it would mean that, with hydro-foil and other forms of quick river transport, it would be possible, perhaps, to go quicker by river than by train or by road, so the waterman himself, apart from the lighterman, would come back into his own.
Even with a permanent Thames barrier, there are grounds for optimism in believing that the river could still be used by lighters carrying goods to various existing points at various parts of the Thames. In fact, in spite of the closure of the Brentford Dock, to which I have already referred, it is possible to build an exit point at the western end of the Thames.
The real and immediate problems of the Thames lighterage industry are those to which I shall now refer. The employers, if asked what they consider to be their immediate problems, will immediately answer that they are being asked to carry too many lightermen, that decasualisation has now brought a heavy responsibility upon every firm to employ an allocated number of men, and that already a number of small firms have been forced out of business or are on the verge of going out of business as a result of the heavy labour costs.
The trade union side mentions no figure of a possible reduction, but every-where in trade union documents and in the speeches of the General Secretary of the Watermen's Union and of officials of the Transport and General Workers' Union there is an awareness on this question of an overall figure satisfactory to the industry's needs. A figure of 1,500 has been mentioned by the Association of Master Lightermen as being an optimum figure in the 1970s. It is exceedingly difficult for somebody outside

the industry to come to any valid conclusion about the appropriate figure at which the industry could run with appropriate safeguards and while also being competitive. That is why I think that the responsibilities arising from decasualisation have shown up very sharply the decline of the industry.
However, it has not at the same time, in my view, shown up the potentialities of the industry. I am firmly of the opinion that there are too many lighterage firms and that, if it were possible to have bigger, and therefore fewer, Units, the units of production would be cheaper and they would be able to modernise and take advantage of the technical change which is, in any case, being forced upon the industry. In other words, I am saying that there are too many firms and that they must slim themselves down. There has already been a reduction to about 60 firms. The signs are that this trend will continue.
Left to themselves, the change will be too slow. If we really want to take effective action to stop further cargoes from going on to the roads, action must be taken now. That is why I should like to see the setting up of an inquiry— not a departmental inquiry, but an independent one; not an inquiry composed of both sides of industry—that produces too many compromises—but an independent inquiry to establish the rôle of the lighterage industry in terms of the next 70 years.
Such an inquiry could, at the same time, examine the present working arrangements and look at the question of labour allocation as well. In this latter category, it would to a certain extent duplicate some of the work of the Devlin Report, but that Report was concerned only with the labour side, and the inquiry for which I ask would be comprehensive. Eventually, the inquiry should make its recommendations to the Minister of Transport, who could then pass the recommendations to the projected port authority, whatever form that ultimately takes.
Speed is of the essence of the matter, because there is a great deal of uncertainty in the industry. On the one hand, there is talk of nationalisation. This term has come up several times in the discussions I have had with the master


lightermen and with the unions concerned. From my own knowledge of the industry, however, I think that the term "nationalisation" is misleading, because it implies a board with a chairman and a separate independent existence such as the established nationalised boards have. Nevertheless, the question of public ownership is clearly one which could fall within the terms of the inquiry. I am not a dogmatist in these matters. In my view, the criterion should be efficiency, and whether this particular industry is serving the port authority. Only an independent inquiry could establish the facts. It would be up to the port authority to decide how best to act on the report.
It could be that the port authority will in any case be given powers by the Minister to go into the lighterage industry, either in competition with the private sector or being given authority to assume a rôle as the lighterage operator in the Port of London. In my opinion, all these matters should be left to the independent inquiry to assess for the future.
The rundown of the lighterage industry is symptomatic of the rundown of the commercial use of the Thames and its under-utilisation as a whole. I have spoken of only one aspect, an aspect which I am particularly concerned, but it is only part of the picture. I hope that my hon. Friend, having heard my speech and my expression of the anxieties felt by both sides of the industry, will concede the establishment of an inquiry so that the industry may in the future make a contribution as unique and as important as it has done in the last 400 years.

4.33 p.m.

Mr. R. Gresham Cooke: I am glad that the hon. Member for Hornchurch (Mr. Alan Lee Williams) has raised this subject. Many of us who have been interested in the River Thames have for some years felt that it was rather sad to see the lighterage trade declining year by year. We have heard of the coke and coal of the North Thames Gas Board going by road instead of by water, and so on, and many of us have felt that this was a decline which we could do little to arrest, but to which more thought ought to be given. I am interested to see the Minister of State at the Ministry of Transport present today, and I hope that

he will have something enlightening to tell us.
As we stand on the Terrace and watch the lighters and barges going by, we probably give no more thought to them than we do to the buses passing over Westminster Bridge. Nevertheless, all the traffic going up and down the river every day, thousands of tons of it, is of great importance to the life of London as a whole, and I am glad that the hon. Gentleman has drawn attention to it. As he said, much of the traffic which used to go by river now goes by road because of the greater speed involved.
I was a director of a small Company in Middlesex on the Grand Union Canal which used timber supplies. More than once, we tried to bring our timber from the Port of London up to West Drayton by canal. There was not very much difference in the cost, but the difference in speed—by road only a few hours, and 24 hours, or a couple of days, by water—meant that the works people always said that they wanted it more rapidly and it was necessary to bring the timber by road. I am sure that the same must have happened in very many cases.
Thought is being given to these matters now. The hon. Gentleman was modest enough not to say that he has just been appointed Secretary of the all-party River Thames Parliamentary Group which has recently been formed, of which I have the honour to be Chairman and of which my hon. Friend the Member for the Cities of London and Westminster (Mr. John Smith) is a member.
The amount of passenger and goods traffic going by water a Century ago was phenomenal. One has only to look at the House of Commons Christmas card this year to see the craft which were on the Thames in those days—ferries, sailing craft, barges, rowing boats, skiffs and boats of all kinds. It is said that about 20 million people a year used the Thames in those days. There has been a long tradition in river traffic carried on by the Company of Watermen and Lightermen, the tradition of rowing races, Doggett's Coat and Badge, and so on. But this tradition is now dying, with the closing of Brentford Dock, and less traffic is being carried.
I have given much thought to the matter, and I can see no good Solution being brought about unless we look at the problem radically. What is the Thames? It is really a tidal creek, a very large and important tidal creek on which the docks of London were built many years ago. But what is happening now is that the important Port of London is moving downstream from the old St. Catharine's and Royal Docks area. The heavy traffic is moving to Tilbury. If one goes there now one can see, for example, a ship of 20,000 tons bringing timber from Canada, and one can appreciate the enormous size of modern tramp ships.
This movement of the Port of London downstream may give us an opportunity, not this year or next, but in due course, as the hon. Member hinted, to build a permanent barrage with locks below Woolwich, perhaps somewhere near Purfleet. I am not now referring to the movable flood barrier which we all hope that the Minister of Housing and Local Government and the Greater London Council will bring in as a temporary measure to prevent the flooding of London. I am referring to permanent looks and a barrage somewhere down below the built-up area of London. This would stop the Thames being a tidal creek and make it what I would call a 24-hour river.
At present, lighters and barges can use the Thames outside Westminster for only about two hours either side of high title, that is, for about four hours of every tide of eight hours a day. Thus, the Thames is being used for only one-third of its capacity. If we had a permanent barrage with locks somewhere near Purfleet, we should have 30 miles of deep-water frontage, and we should have use of the River Thames for 24 hours a day, with deep water all the time. In those conditions, we could bring into use fast craft, sidewall hovercroft, and so on, running rapidly up and down the river and competing with road transport for both passengers and goods. There are markets on either side, Covent Garden Market, and so on, which could have access to the river.
It is always said that this sort of thing cannot be done, but I have seen two examples in the last year or two. In the United States, in Boston, I was Struck

by the beauty of the Charles River, where there is a barrage separating the docks of Boston from the city itself. One realises at once why Harvard University is so good at rowing—it has water to row on 24 hours a day, because there is no tide. The barrage has turned the Charles River into a very beautiful river for use at all times.
In France, there is the Rance barrage above St. Malo near Dinan, which is mainly an electricity barrage but which still keeps the water above the barrage permanently at a fairly high level. One possible Solution to the problem in the Thames would be a permanent barrage, and that is a matter which I would like an inquiry to consider.
Another possible but temporary Solution has been put to me recently. I put it forward only tentatively and the Ministry of Transport may be able to examine it. At Richmond, just below my constituency, there is a half lock on the River Thames by Richmond Bridge. When the tide is half down this half lock is brought into Operation and holds back the tide, preventing the River at Twickenham and Teddington from degenerating into a muddy stream. The river is made much more boatable, as it were, for sailing and boating craft on that part of the river.
The disadvantage of a half lock is that at a low State of the water it is a hindrance to navigation and the passenger craft from Westminster might not be able to get down to Greenwich for some part of the tide, but a half lock at London Bridge, for instance, would give a much greater height of water between Teddington and London Bridge than we now have at low tide, which is at least half of the day.
I do not want this lighterage traffic to be driven away altogether, but at its present rate of decline it looks as though that could happen. If it does, the streets will get even more congested with even more lorries carrying coal and oil, and so on, which is now carried on the river. It is a serious problem affecting what should be one of our chief communication arteries, 30 or 40 miles of river flowing through London.
I therefore add my voice to the demand for an inquiry into the short-term measures mentioned by the hon. Member for Hornchurch and the long-term measures


which I have mentioned, quite apart from the mobile barrage to deal with the possible flooding of London which should be separately inquired into.

4.43 p.m.

Mr. John Smith: The hon. Member for Hornchurch (Mr. Alan Lee Williams), who is a Freeman of the City of London, as I am, has done the House a service by raising this matter and doing so in such a temperate and scholarly manner. It may be thought that the Thames lighterage industry is rather a narrow subject for the House to debate, especially coming immediately after our exchanges about South Africa; but, in fact, the industry illustrates in itself all this country's present ills, and can indeed even shed light on what we ought to do about our trade with South Africa.
It is an old industry with all the disadvantages of that. Many of our industries suffer from having been developed much earlier in this country than those of our modern competitors abroad, some of whom have the extra advantage over us that the arthritis and adhesions of the past, which we retain, have been cured for them by the surgery of war and defeat.
It is also a surprisingly large industry. There are perhaps 6,000 barges and similar craft engaged in the trade, carrying more than 10 million tons of cargo a year.
Those who wish to study this trade, Mr. Deputy Speaker, may do so very conveniently from the balcony of the Angel Inn, at Rotherhithe, from which, at high tide on a summer's evening, one of the noblest of all prospects of London can be gained; or from the Grapes Public House, at the corner of Ropemakers Fields between Wapping Old Stairs and Limehouse Pier. From either of those places at high tide you may observe the commerce of the world moving on the flood. Nearly half the tonnage of the Port of London is handled in barges and before the war it was very much more than that, nearly three-quarters. One would imagine that one was looking at the busiest port in the world, and that was so until after this recent war; but now, to our shame, and for reasons which we all know, it is the fifth port of the world.
The lighterage industry has suffered even more than the port. Being an old industry, it has suffered from technical progress in other directions—from bulk cargo ships, from palletised cargo ships, from new quays, from the development of Containers, which the Minister of Technology tells us he is pushing forward. Also, because it is old, it is divided into many firms, perhaps 50 or 60.
The hon. Member for Hornchurch mentioned the need for an inquiry, which I endorse, but I would like to see the Industrial Reorganisation Corporation, since we are, at any rate for the time being, saddled with that body, looking into the number of different firms, because it might be able to help the industry more quickly in that direction than could an inquiry.
The industry also suffers from the general conditions in the Port of London. It has lost much of its trans-shipment trade. The slowness, stoppages and consequent unreliability of the Port of London have driven many thousands of tons of this trade to Rotterdam; and many of those who have not been driven away are yet determined to warehouse their goods away from the river, inland out of the reach of the Dock Labour Scheme, which means that the goods have to go by lorry and not by barge. I hope that the Minister of State will take account of that.
The industry also suffers from its own wage structure and arrangements. Under the decasualisation scheme the industry has to employ 400 men, which is one in seven in the industry, for whom there is no work at all. These are good men who start as apprentices and who are members of a "blue" union, a colour which has no political connotation in the Port of London—it is a term of praise to be a member of a "blue" union—and these men are completely lost to the country. Is it sensible to keep them marking time like this when there is so much else which needs to be done? Moreover, keeping those men idle costs the industry £500,000 a year in their basic pay, stamps, and percentage paid to the Dock Labour Board, etc. It also costs the country that sum and more in trade lost as a result.
Mr. Deputy Speaker, there are not many of us here this afternoon, but


great issues are at stake. We debate here whether it is right or wrong to sell arms to South Africa; whether sanctions against Rhodesia are good or bad; whether prescription charges are desirable or undesirable. But we are like men arguing on a raft which is being swept out to sea. We are committing all over again, in a different context, the fatal errors of the 1930s. Then, hon. Members here argued—for example, on the Air Estimates—whether we should have four more squadrons or no more; while all the time unimaginable forces were being built up against us abroad.
In just the same way now, unimaginable commercial forces are being built up against us abroad; and we sit here, very often sniping or sneering at commerce, when what is most desperately wanted is commercial rearmament, just as much as we needed military rearmament in the 1930s. We do not now particularly admire those pipe-smoking Governments of the 1930s. Equally, our successors will not forgive us if we dally here complaining about being insulted abroad, discussing new ways of spending more money on ourselves, and generally treating industry as the Fat Boy of Britain, greedy and stupid and good for a little bullying.
We succeeded in the past because we were not ashamed of commerce, as were some other countries, such as Spain. The Thames lighterage industry is a good example of this. Now we are making tie same mistakes as those other countries made. We shall suffer the same eclipse, unless we encourage, respect and emulate those who create wealth. We can start now—and the hon. Member for Hornchurch has produced a splendid example of how we can do so in this debate—in the centre of the commercial capital of our country, by resolving to liberate the Thames lighterage industry from the burden of £500,000 a year which drives our trade away—the Industrial Reorganisation Corporation is the body to consider that—and also by sorting out the absurd, and humiliating, over-manning in the industry, which should be referred to the inquiry suggested by the hon. Gentleman.

4.54 p.m.

Sir Douglas Glover: We are all grateful to the hon. Member for Hornchurch (Mr. Alan Lee Williams) for

initiating the debate. Hon. Members on this side of the House seem to outnumber hon. Members opposite by about three to one in showing their interest in Old Father Thames and the problem of the watermen and lightermen. The hon. Gentleman's historical references were very interesting. All of us have great pride in the way the River Thames used to be the great artery running through all our major affairs. I suppose that if the watermen still held their pride of place this side of the House would be moving a Motion that the Prime Minister be taken to Traitors' Gate at the Tower of London by water tonight, because so many great events have taken place on that Stretch of water.
My hon. Friend the Member for Cities of London and Westminster (Mr. John Smith) was right to say that our pride in our nation and our history could have an enormous boost from the debate. All of us want the Thames to be a flourishing waterway and the Port of London to be the first port in the world once again. I think that we could make it so. But I am not certain that the hon. Gentleman was right to say that we need an inquiry into the lighterage industry. Perhaps it would be a good thing, but I wonder if he would be prepared for the inquiry to say, for example, that the free water clause should go.
That would be only too likely if there were an inquiry into this ancient and honourable industry, for how can one find the commercial value of an activity when a great many of the things involved in it are free? For example, I understand that all the locks must be opened for the lightermen at no charge, and that they have free entry to the docks at any time. I accept the problem of a tidal river, but those factors, whilst perhaps increasing the lightermen's ability to carry out their job, mean that costs are incurred which are not paid for by the lighterage Community. If that is so, an inquiry might find that there should be an increase in the lightermen's charges to cover those costs incurred by the Port of London Authority.
Similarly, as my hon. Friend the Member for Cities of London and Westminster said, an inquiry would have to go into the question of over-manning. The hon. Gentleman said that he did not want an inquiry composed of the owners and


the workers, which I thought showed great courage on his part, connected as he is with the industry. That appears to mean that he wants the inquiry to produce the right answer on the industry's future working. After decasualisation, any inquiry is bound to say that without the casual dement the industry should work with a smaller number on its payroll. I am not sufficient of an expert to know whether the reduction would be 300, 400 or 500, but such a drop would do a great deal to make the industry more efficient, while still carrying out the same Jobs, and would make a substantial difference to the on-cost of transporting goods.
It would make us that much more competitive, and if we were, the transhipment of goods might begin to drift back to the Thames from Rotterdam. I understand that Rotterdam is beginning to encounter problems, as all new developments are bound to do, which are taking a bit of the cream off the top of the milk there. There is a to-ing and fro-ing in tidal industries connected with the sea, and it may be that the Port of London, with the experience gained by Rotterdam, could now so modernise its labour force that we could regain a good deal of the traffic we have lost.
I think that the lighterage industry on the River Thames carries 10 million tons of merchandise every year. I do not speak as one involved in the industry, but my impression is that the river's traffic-carrying capacity could be doubled or trebled as a result of the suggestions put forward by my hon. Friend the Member for Twickenham (Mr. Gresham Cooke).
When I go to Venice, and see the vaporetti carrying passengers, it astonishes me that far more people are not carried in London by water. People in Venice are whisked about by the vaporetti. Many of these motorboats go very fast and they could on the Thames provide an equally rapid Service from Governmental palaces in Whitehall to the city temples of iniquity. There is an enormous amount of to-ing and fro-ing between the City and Whitehall and the speed with which people would be able to get from Whitehall to the City by a modern system of motor launches would be much better than by motor traction, despite all the

improvements brought about by successive Ministers of Transport and the City of London.
The hon. Gentleman began by talking about the watermen going on strike or creating a hullaballoo because of the advent of hackney carriages. Everything in this world goes full circle. If the hon. Gentleman studies the Order Paper, he will see that part of our business for later today is the London Cab Bill. That Bill is about the London hackney carriage driver trying to get some protection against a new form of competition and I suppose that this inevitably is how life goes on.
The watermen, rightly, lost their battle against the advent of the hackney carriage; the hackney carriage today is having to come to an accommodation with the hire car. What we are trying to do, as did our predecessors 300 years ago, is, as it were, to soften the blow and give justice to both sides. But inevitably, when society changes, the answer is often that something has to go.
Most of the watermen in passenger transport went out of business. Now, I think, there is an opportunity for some of that business to come back. I am sure that there is room now for a great deal more water traffic to ease the congestion in our river. A really good motor launch service could be provided as though the Thames were a trunk route.
I would like an inquiry, but I think that the hon. Gentleman must realise that, out of it, might come a lot of answers which both sides of the lighterage industry would find unpalatable. But if they did accept genuine modernisation of the trade, then they could do a great deal to tackle, in one small sector, the problems which confront this country.

5.3 p.m.

Mr. Patrick Jenkiu (Wanstead and Woodford): I am sure that the whole House is grateful to the hon. Member for Hornchurch (Mr. Alan Lee Williams) for having chosen this subject for the debate, and I add my congratulations to those of my hon. Friends to him for having opened the debate in the manner he did. I am sure that he will forgive me if I use the occasion more as a vehicle for airing some of the problems with which the industry is undoubtedly confronted rather than perhaps for endorsing


too wholeheartedly his specific proposal for an inquiry.
I see the case which the hon. Member made but, on the whole, I believe that the existing machinery, such as the Industrial Reorganisation Corporation, as mentioned by my hon. Friend the Member for the Cities of London and Westminster (Mr. John Smith), ought to be sufficient for dealing with the problems. However, there is an essential proviso— that the Government should be prepared for their part to approach the problems with sympathy and imagination.
No one who has given attention to this industry or studied it in detail can fail to be impressed by the enormously important role which the Thames lighterage industry has fulfilled over the centuries, as the hon. Gentleman rightly pointed out, in the Operations of the Port of London and by the great contribution it has made to the development and growth of this mighty port.
The use of lighters is vastly greater in London than in almost any other port in Britain. It arises directly out of the geographical features of the Thames. The Port of London Jurisdiction runs for 69 miles of the Thames from Teddington to the Nore, and much of the river is lined on both sides with wharves operated by wharfingers, warehousemen and industries of all sorts. These wharves cannot for the most part be served by ocean-going ships. Their only link with the world outside is via the lighterage trade.
These riverside wharves, although I accept entirely what the hon. Gentleman said about the decline in their use, still play a very important part in the trade of the Port of London and will continue to do so for many years. This will undoubtedly create a need for a lighterage Service in the port for as long ahead as can be Seen. Many of the industries on the Thames are served and will be served, many cargoes will continue to be handled and many factories will have access to the Port of London only via these riverside wharves. That fact is not, I believe, disputed by anyone.
The lighters also have another very important function in the overside trade within the enclosed docks. The ability to load and unload a ship from both sides instead of merely the side on which she is tied up allows the loading and unload-

ing to be carried out much more rapidly and thus saves on demurrage charges.
Lighters also give access to the waters further inland and I listened with interest to what the hon. Gentleman had to say about the closure of Brentford Docks. The River Lea navigation via Barking Creek, somewhat nearer to my constituency, is still important and one hopes to see this developed over the next few years so that it can play a major part in bringing the hinterland into contact with the Port of London.
But all this depends on the existence of an efficient, economic, flexible and versatile lighterage industry which performs a Service for the other users of the docks. This was a point made by Mr. Henman —as he then was—Chairman of the Transport Development Group, in a lecture to the Institute of Transport more than ten years ago. He said:
 Lighterage in London is a ' tailor-made ' Service to meet a variety of conditions rather than a standardised organisation where uniformity is the order of the day.
The hon. Member has drawn attention to the decline in the use of lighters and perhaps I may be forgiven for mentioning one or two more figures. In 1957 there were some 6,600 dumb lighters— lighters which are not self-propelled—in use in London. By this year, the number had fallen to about 4,500, a decline of over 30 per cent. in only ten years. The traffic figures—goods handled by lighters —show that the bulk of the decline has occurred in recent years.
Figures which are provided by a firm of chartered accountants for the Association of Master Lightermen and Barge Owners show that whereas in 1963 the Association members, who account for the great bulk of the traffic handled by the lighterage industry, accounted for about 13 million tons, by 1966 this figure had fallen to 9| million tons, a decline of 27 per cent. in only three years. Therefore we are talking, as one of my hon. Friends has pointed out, about a very familiar subject, a declining industry.
It is not difficult to look for reasons for this. New techniques in the handling of goods have made great advances, and rightly so, in recent years. One can instance the new bulk sugar handling berth at Woolwich operated by Messrs. Tate and Lyle. That put out of business


a substantial part of the lighterage trade. The Port of London Authority's Annual Report this year contains a picture of the new Tilbury Dock, No. 34, for handling timber in packages—again, a major development, which is bound to reduce the dependence of the timber trade on lighterage.
It is interesting in this context to compare what was being said only five years ago by the Rochdale Committee when it reported in September, 1962, because it referred to the problems of the timber trade, in particular in relation to the Surrey timber docks. It had this to say in paragraph 510:
 It is clear, therefore, that adequate Provision of lighters is one of the chief Problems. We understand that at peak periods congestion in the Docks can be seriously aggravated by a shortage of lighters, one result of which is that ships wishing to discharge overside into barge cannot do so.
I doubt whether the Committee would write the same paragraph today. There may indeed be an occasional problem of congestion in the Surrey Docks, but the developments at Tilbury and elsewhere make it clear that technical progress is in fact rapidly overtaking the proposition to which the Rochdale Committee there committed itself.
Then, of course, there is the Container traffic, which is now having what one can only describe as an explosive boom. This is being assisted, rightly, by the development of Tilbury as a Container port in conjunction with the inland Container facilities, the freight liner trains, and so on. All these represent a significant advance in handling, significant improvements in productivity, and are, therefore, to be welcomed, but they inevitably displace, where it was relevant, the lighterage trade, which, whatever its advantages, whatever benefits it conferred, undoubtedly always involved a measure of double handling.
In spite of these, my studies lead me to the conclusion that there will be a place for lighterage as far ahead as can be foreseen. We shall never see it in London as it is in the north-west Continental ports. Rotterdam, Antwerp, and other ports of north-west Europe stand at the opening of a vast System of internal navigable waterways, rivers and canals, which a country of this size can

never hope to match simply because it is not endowed with natural resources of that sort. But still the London lighterage trade will be very substantial, and it will continue for many years to offer employment to many hundreds of water-men and it will, undoubtedly, handle millions of tons of goods. Therefore, I maintain, and I repeat, that it is essential that the trade should be as efficient and economical as it is possible to make it.
I should like to raise two specific points, and we should be grateful to the Minister of State if he would deal with them in his reply. The hon. Member for Hornchurch has already drawn attention to the decline in manpower in the industry, and we are facing here many of the familiar problems of redeployment, but the problem—my hon. Friend the Member for the Cities of London and Westminster brought this out very clearly— is that manpower has not declined in parallel with the decline in traffic. I mentioned a few moments ago that tonnage had declined in three years by 27 per cent. During that period, in December, 1963, the number of men on the live lighterage register was 3,327; in December, 1966, it was 2,915, which is a decline of only 12 per cent., less than half the rate of decline in tonnage.
The number which the Lighterage Association now needs is probably below 2,500 men, which means that there are between 350 and 400 men too many on the lighterage register. This is a serious matter because it is imposing additional costs on the lighterage firms and, therefore, adding to the problems of the industry in its efforts to try to retain traffic in competition with other firms.
Decasualisation has undoubtedly brought this matter to a head. I think it is right to point out—what the hon. Member for Hornchurch, perhaps due to pressure of time, did not entirely make clear—that there has always been in the lighterage trade a vastly higher Proportion of men who have been on regular employment, who have been weekly employees of the firms, or alternatively more or less permanently attached to the individual firms, than has been the case with employment in the docks industry as a whole.
It is very clearly brought out in the Devlin Report in paragraph 160:
 The organisation of labour in the lighterage industry is very different from that in the port generally. 807 men, including all the tug crews, are weekly employees. The great majority of the remainder, although theoretically on a daily basis, are ' attached' to particular employers. There are only about 200 unattached men. Thus about 90 per Cent, of the labour force is regularly employed.
This means that the effects of decasualisation were substantially different from those which applied to other port employees.
However, as the lighterage trade has declined so has the need for manpower, and on decasualisation there was a considerable surplus which, of course, under the decasualisation rules had to be absorbed, and it has represented a substantial and immediate additional cost which the firms themselves must now meet. The figure which my hon. Friend put on this, of £500,000 does not seem to me to be in any way an exaggeration.
I think it is right to point out that the leaders of the two unions involved do not seriously dispute this question. They may have other solutions to put forward, but this is generally agreed in the industry. But there is as yet no agreement as to how it should be resolved. The Minister of State will know that last month the deputation which waited on his right hon. Friend the Minister of Labour put these problems before him very fairly and fully, but the Association is still waiting for some indication of how the Ministry feels it can help.
For myself, I believe that the problem here is probably one of earlier retirement. This is hard, heavy work. The retirement age has only recently been brought to 65, and indeed, there are many men who have not exercised the Option to retire at 65, and it would seem in these circumstances that there would be room for streamlining, by giving inducements —and there must, of course, be inducements—to the older men to retire and so make it easier to provide continued employment for those who still have work in this industry for many years to come.
May I mention under this head of man power problems one special problem. The Government chose for decasualisation day—D-day one might describe it—18th

September. This was opposed by the port employers' association because it had not finalised its agreements with the unions on many of the ancillary problems which decasualisation was undoubtedly going to involve. There was no agreement yet as to what was to happen in the event of severance, or redundancy, and, in particular, no agreement about what was to happen to men who became allocated to particular employers and might find themselves with no work due to strikes in other parts of the port industry. A provisional agreement, which has not yet been signed, and has not been agreed by both sides, would allow for Suspension of men in this case after one week. In the first week they would be paid by their employer, but after a week they would be regarded as falling within the National Insurance Scheme.
A difficulty which arises is that for some reason, registered port workers are not entitled to the normal unemployment benefit under the National Insurance scheme. Therefore, one well understands why the trade unions have regarded that as a thoroughly unacceptable clause in the agreement. Nevertheless, this is something which must be dealt with.
During the recent dock strike, for example, by the end of the strike on 27th November, nearly one-half of the employees in the lighterage industry—about 1,300—were without work due to the strike. Under the decasualisation scheme, they were having to be paid the basic pay attributable to such workers—about £19 a week. It is quite impossible to expect firms which already have difficulty in keeping themselves afloat to face that additional cost due to factors entirely outside their control, namely, the unofficial strike in the docks. This was a cost which was crippling the industry. Reluctantly, one must face the possibility that that might happen again. The Government have a direct responsibility to act in this matter. It must be dealt with as one of urgency.
Over the years, there has been a deteriorating trend in the profits of the lighterage business and a number of firms, as, I believe, the Government accept, are making losses on this part of their trade. The Government have introduced decasualisation, which was welcomed on all sides of the industry, and certainly on


both sides of the House, but the industry is entitled to the Government's help in trying to solve some of the consequential Problems of which this is certainly one.
The second topic which I should like to air is what I can only describe as the shabby treatment meted out to the industry under the Industrial Development Act, because it is not now entitled to Investment grants although it was entitled to investment allowances under the preceding legislation.
Again, Mr. Henman in his paper drew attention to one of the problems of the industry: namely, that the barges have a very long life, but, at the same time, their capital cost has increased substantially. In the period which he was considering, it was an increase of over five times.

Mr. Alan Lee Williams: If I may emphasise the important point which the hon. Member is making, it is estimated that the present capital cost of the fleet afloat, barges and lighters, costed on prewar prices, would be about £7 million. the same fleet today would cost £35 million.

Mr. Jenkin: I am grateful to the hon. Member for his intervention. It accords closely with the figure which Mr. Henman mentioned of approximately a five-fold increase. That is certainly true. It is a problem of management accounting to make sure that the rates charged for the use of lighters reflect in some measure their replacement costs.
When writing in 1957, however, Mr. Henman went on to point out that the problem had been recognised by the Government. He wrote:
 The depth of the problem has been recognised by the Government in so far as a lighter is treated as a ship and an investment allowance of 40 per cent. is given by the Inland Revenue authorities in respect of purchases of new craft.
Since then, there has been additional help in the form of free depreciation. On 16th January, investment allowances were abolished and we subsequently learned that there were to be no grants for vessels of that sort. The grants were limited under the Act to self-propelled vessels or vessels of over 100 tons.
In Committee on the Industrial Development Bill, my right hon. Friend

the Member for Argyll (Mr. Noble; moved two Amendments, one of which was to reduce the tonnage figure from 100 to 20 tons. That was opposed by the right hon. Member for Battersea, North (Mr. Jay), then President of the Board of Trade, in Standing Committee on 21sl June, 1966, when the right hon. Gentleman said—I quote the passage because it is relevant in this matter:
 When we come to shipping we are in the difficulty that the overseas shipping industry, the foreign-going ships, are clearly making, as we all know, an exceedingly valuable contribution to the balance of payments, whereas on the other hand purely internal transport, coastal transport, although valuable in many ways, is preponderantly in competition with other forms of internal transport which are not getting the grant.
Therefore, we are bound to draw a distinction somewhere between those ships preponderantly in use in coastal, or in effect internal, transport, and ocean-going ships.
That argument entirely misses the point of the lighterage industry in a port such as London. For the most part, it is not in competition with internal transport. It is an inevitable and necessary extension of the ocean-going freight business, which, the Government clearly recognised, should continue to qualify for grant. In many cases, the goods simply cannot reach the shore without the use of the lighterage industry.
The second Amendment was to omit "self-propelled", as a result of which dumb barges would qualify for grants. Again, the right hon. Member for Battersea, North rejected the Amendment. He said:
 The issue is the same as on the previous Amendment. As we are going to exclude internal transport entirely whether by road, rail or other method from the payment of these grants, it would be extremely difficult to include barges which are almost wholly used for what is in effect internal transport, and not for the carriage of goods overseas. It may well be that those responsible for supplying barge Services or lighterage Services may feel they ought to have a claim to be classed as ships.
I would only comment that they do indeed.
 On the other hand, if we exclude road and rail transport, and then give grants to barges which might in many cases be in direct competition, there would be a justifiable grievance which could be put forward by the other means of internal transport."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, Standing Committee D, 21st June, 1966; c. 284–5, 287–8.]
That, again, entirely misses the point. The barges are not in this context in


competition with road and rail. They are in a special and unique category, an essential adjunct of the ocean-going function which the Port of London exists to serve.
I entirely concede that grants for this purpose are outside the terms of the Act, but I would like the Minister of State to consult his right hon. Friend the President of the Board of Trade to see whether this is a matter which could be referred to the Board of Trade's Advisory Committee set up under the Industrial Development Act to see whether it would not be appropriate that that matter should be looked at again. It could be dealt with simply. A short Clause in next year's Finance Bill could deal with the matter shortly and simply and bring these barges, which perform this important function in the Port of London, within the investment grant System. They used to get the investment allowances. They no longer get the grant. This is a special problem of a rather narrow and specific nature, but it is one in which the responsibility rests firmly on the Government.
Finally, may I mention a special point under this head?
When the White Paper "Investment Incentives", Cmnd. 2874, was published, it contained a reference to ships and it was indicated in paragraph 18(6) that
 certain types of asset including ships and Computer? will receive special treatment on the lines indicated in paragraphs 29–35.
Paragraph 29 stated:
 Ships. Special arrangements were made in the Finance Act 1965 in order to made the needs of the shipping industry "—
that included these barges;
 in addition to the 40 per cent. rate of investment allowance already in force, free depreciation was also made available. Free depreciation will continue and new ships will also he eligible for grants at the national rate of 20 per cent. in place of investment allowances.
The dismay can be imagined with which, four months later, when the Bill was issued on 4th May, the industry discovered that a wholly new definition of ships was introduced for the first time and that the definition which the industry had thought would continue to apply, as had been applied by the Inland Revenue over the years, was no longer applicable

and that barges such as we are discussing this afternoon would not be eligible for grants.
This was taken up with the Treasury, and the Chief Secretary, in a letter dated 29th September, 1967, dealt with the argument in these words:
The Inland Revenue tell me that as a general rule they do not regard barges and lighters as ships unless they are self-propelled, but, in the case of such vessels used on the Thames and registered under the Merchant Shipping Acts, these have been regarded by a generous Interpretation of the statutory language as ships. The White Paper contained, as you will appreciate, only a general outline of the new grant scheme, but it made it clear that the scope of the new System would be, quite deliberately, less wide than that of investment allowances, and in view of this it was perhaps unfortunate that your members did not consider it prudent to defer their investment decisions until the full details of the scheme were published in the Bill.
I suggest that that is an outrageous letter from the Chief Secretary to have sent. There was nothing in the White Paper to indicate that the definition of "ships" was to be different under the new scheme from that under the old. It is a fact that some firms continued to order new barges since 16th January, 1966, and before the Bill was published, and their legitimate expectations were defeated.
The Government have power to do justice, not under the Industrial Development Act, but under the Harbours Act, 1964, and the Docks and Harbours Act, 1966. The Minister knows that his right hon. Friend the Minister of Transport has power to make grants towards the expense of carrying out harbour Operations, and, by Section 57 of the 1964 Act, "harbour Operations" include lighterage. The power is there. The limitations which the hon. Member for Hornchurch detailed to the House in his opening speech on the Operation of those powers to make grants, which are not powers of the Board of Trade but the Ministry of Transport, are entirely self-imposed. There are no restrictions in the Acts such as the hon. Member read out. We have here a case of substantial hard-ship. These firms were misled by the Government. While I accept that there is no power to make grants under the Industrial Development Act, 1966, as drafted, there is power under the Docks and Harbours Act, and it is my contention that it ought to be used.
In conclusion, this is a traditional craft with a long and proud history, and lightermen are rightly jealous of their skills and reputation. Conditions on the river are changing fast. New techniques and a new era in labour relations are bringing their consequences. Yet all agree that the lighterage industry will continue to play a vital part in the Operation of the Port of London for many years to come. But, to succeed, it must have guidance and encouragement and sympathetic understanding from the Government. While men and managers are rightly imbued with the spirit of drama and romance even which has always surrounded Operations on this great tideway, there is widespread acknowledgment of what has to be done to modernise this industry. Indeed, there is a recognition that the industry must do more than react to change. It must foster and promote it. This is a three-way partnership: the Government, the firms and the unions. I hope that the Minister in reply will demonstrate clearly and equivocally, by actions as well as by words, that the Government are now ready and willing to play their part in the future development of what is, by any Standards, a crucially important link with the nation's lifeline.

5.34 p.m.

The Minister of State, Ministry of Transport (Mr. Stephen Swingler): I
congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Hornchurch (Mr. Alan Lee Williams) on taking the initiative in selecting the under-utilisation of the River Thames as a subject for debate today. I wish more power to the elbows of those who foregather here on an all-party basis to stimulate greater and wider interest in the use of the Thames. I hope that makes plain my sympathy with the Motion and some of the issues to which my hon. Friend has drawn attention.
The Government are seriously concerned about the problems of the lighterage industry and its prospects for the future. Our attention was drawn to them very vividly by the inspector, Mr. Gilbert Williams, who held the inquiry into licensing appeals in London, and also in discussions which were held subsequently by my right hon. Friend the Minister of Labour with all parties concerned.
Many facts have been given. My hon. Friend the Member for Hornchurch sketched, in a romantic way, some of the past history of the lighters on the Thames, and other hon. Members have added facts and figures about recent times.
The hon. Member for Wanstead and Woodford (Mr. Patrick Jenkin) drew attention to the serious fact that in the last three or four years the tonnage carried by lighters in London has declined by about 27 per cent. from a figure of some 13 million tons to 9½ million tons. There has, of course, been an additional Sharp setback during the temporary disruption of the London Docks by unofficial action. As he and other hon. Members mentioned, the decline in the number of lightermen in that same period has been comparatively small. It has not marched in step with the decline in trade. Therefore, as hon. Members have said, there could well be a surplus of men in the industry even when trade recovers fully from the recent stoppage. This is a matter which is being considered urgently by my right hon. Friend the Minister of Labour.
The hon. Member for the Cities of London and Westminster (Mr. John Smith) drew attention to the problem of overmanning. We all knew that this was a matter that had to be gone into on the morrow of decasualisation and had to be discussed chiefly between the Government, the employers, the Port of London Authority and the unions concerned. That was why my right hon. Friend the Minister of Labour immediately invited both sides of industry to put forward their proposals for the future on the basis that the decasualisation scheme was being carried through. That is why serious discussions on these matters are continuing under my right hon. Friend's authority.
My hon. Friend the Member for Hornchurch and others were rightly concerned about the nature and causes of the decline in the lighterage trade. The root cause is that major changes, which have been mentioned, are taking place in cargo handling, in shipping and in the economics of transport which make it uneconomic to use lighters for some of their traditional trades. Sugar was mentioned. Sugar used to be a substantial trade, but,


since the opening of the new bulk handling at Silvertown, much of this trade has disappeared.
Similarly, the hon. Member for Wanstead and Woodford mentioned timber. The timber carried in lighters is now decreasing rapidly because of the development of packaged timber, handled direct over the new specialised quays at Tilbury, in place of the traditional loose timber handled largely in the Surrey Docks overside to barges. Less oil, coal and grain are carried in dumb barges as a result of modern technological developments, and on the inland waterways, as we have known for some time, traffic has been declining.
These are some of the technical changes. In other respects economics have been the determining feature. The plain fact is that there are many respects, and we had better face it, in which lighterage no longer fits the requirements of transport in modern times. But this does not mean that the river need lose its importance. There have been a number of developments in favour of the use of the river: the larger self-propelled oil barges, which are increasingly coming into use, is one instance, and the development for the Port of London Authority of a new "pusher" tug, which will push instead of pulling their 1,000 ton spoil barges for disposal of dredged material, is another example. I understand that if this experiment is successful, the idea that well catch on. A pushed barge is locked to its tug, and is more easily manœuvred in a narrow space than a pulled barge.
Looking further ahead, another development is in sight which could have considerable implications for River Thames traffic. I am referring to the so-called "Lighter Aboard Ship" System, known as LASH. Lighters are lifted bodily out of the water into a ship which carries them across the ocean. This System is already in an advanced State of development by American shipping companies, but I cannot yet say whether so-called LASH ships are likely to prove economic in British waters.
Meanwhile, the Port of London Authority is alive to the need for improvements in facilities where these will clearly show an economic return. Indeed, ii has recently reconditioned the barge entrance to the Royal Docks at a cost of

about £1·9 million. This enables lighters to avoid 3½ miles of river navigation, and is now used by nearly 500 barges per week. Measures such as this are some-times overlooked when criticism is levelled from some quarters that the Port Authority is not being helpful to the future of the lighterage trade.
The Freight Group of the Transport Co-ordinating Council for London is currency devoting much of its attention to ways in which better use can be made of the river for transport purposes, and I am sure that its studies, made in Cooperation with the P.L.A. and the local authorities concerned, including the G.L.C., will ensure that no practical and economic proposals are overlooked.
My hon. Friend recalled the story of the Brentford Dock. I do not propose to go into the history of that. It was something in which the Government had no Standing. It was a matter between British Railways management, the G.L.C., and the local Council. I hope that all those who are concerned in stimulating use of the river in this way will not forget the other Brentford dock, that of the British Waterways Board. Though the width of its lock precludes the acceptance of the biggest craft on the river, it can, nevertheless, take barges of up to 175 tons and provide them with an excellent cargo handling service.
I would like to take this opportunity of especially welcoming the development by the British Waterways Board of its new export barge trans-shipment service, which enables goods brought to West London by lorry to be taken direct to the docks by barge from Brentford. I hope that all those who are concerned with stimulating this development will draw attention to the fact that there is spare capacity and potential for development there.
I would like, now, to come to that part of my hon. Friend's speech in which he dealt with the future reorganisation of the lighterage industry in the context of the proposals for the ports put forward by the Government. I am glad that my hon. Friend the Member for Poplar (Mr. Mikardo) is now in the Chamber. I was about to mention that the Mikardo Report on the port transport industry drew attention to the present inefficient Organisation of lighterage and gave a graphic description of the failure of the


management side to co-operate in giving the service required.
For instance, it is possible for empty barges belonging to various companies to be waiting at the side of a ship for the chance to unload cargo which is stowed low in the hold, while the Company which is supposed to be loading the upper layer of cargo is unable to supply the barges to start the work. Meanwhile, the ship, the gangs of dockers, and the road and rail connections have to wait. Here is a prime example of inefficiency resulting from the fragmentation of management in the ports, the sort of thing with which we have to grapple.
The Watermen, Lightermen, Tugmen and Bargemen's Union has also drawn attention to this kind of inefficiency, and this kind of problem. The union wishes to see a flourishing lighterage industry on the Thames, and it advocates the extension of public ownership, not in a doctrinaire spirit, but because it feels that in the interests of its members it must have a stronger and more cohesive management capable of giving lighters a fair share of the trade on the river.

Mr. John Smith: Does it also say that decasualisation was supposed to be accompanied by the removal of restrictive practices, that is to say Category A and B practices, and how much progress has been made with this?

Mr. Swingler: I referred to that earlier. We know that arising out of the achievement of decasualisation negotiations have to take place between the managers and the organised workers throughout the London docks, under the authority of the Government, to achieve the removal of restrictive practices, and to achieve proper manning scales. These are the discussions which I said are going forward under the authority of my right hon Friend the Minister of Labour. We accept that the case for reorganisation is a strong one. Nevertheless, I must point out that there are certain complications which make it necessary for a thorough review to be carried out before reorganisation can take place. This is the sort of review which we believe must be undertaken by the port management.
The problems arise from the fact that lighterage is not merely a port service but merges on the one side into the in-

land waterway System and on the other into the maritime transport System. It is not our intention that under public ownership the port authorities should run either of these two Systems. Even within the Port of London we find some lighterage using the river as a highway, but not using the port—for example, barges which collect ash from power stations and dump it. There are, too, examples of "single-user" lighterage integrated into the processes of, let us say, an oil Company, or some other concern. The functions and ownership of lighterage on the Thames are complex in their pattern. Certain lighterage firms are connected with shipping, and, in particular, with towage of various sorts—sea-going tugs as well as the craft tugs which are used for moving lighters.
I know that some of my hon. Friends have expressed concern that we did not propose at the outset that lighterage should be taken over in the scheme for public ownership of the ports. I have quoted those examples in reply to my hon. Friend to explain why, in the Government's working document on the reorganisation of the ports—our provisional proposals issued in July as a basis for discussion—envisaged that lighterage and towage would not, at the outset, be taken over, but that a duty would be put on the port authority to review the position of the lighterage and towage industries, and to put forward schemes where they see these as necessary to integrate their Operations for the purpose of raising the efficiency of the ports.
My hon. Friend and other hon. Members know that consultations on this document are still proceeding, and that it will be impossible for the Government to reach a decision on this and other points until all the interested parties have had their say. From my experience of the consultations, I believe that on all sides there is a genuine desire to find a Solution to these problems, and one that will bring into being more cohesive management and public responsibility for port management in the interests of the future economic well-being of the country.
Because of these consultations, and because we believe that the port authorities themselves ought to exercise initiative in this matter, I cannot here and now undertake that an independent inquiry of


the kind suggested by my hon. Friend will be established to go into the future of the lighterage industry. But I should like to assure hon. Members who have supported the case put forward in the Motion for such an independent inquiry that we are prepared to consider this matter in conjunction with my right hon. Friend the President of the Board of Trade and my right hon. Friend the Minister of Labour, because we recognise the strength of my hon. Friend's case.
The hon. Member for Wanstead and Woodford raised the question of grants. I know that he will agree that in any scheme of grants put forward where definitions are required—whether concerning the functions and use of a certain grant, or based on a certain cut-off point in relation to weight—there may be what some people regard as anomalies and special cases which ought to be considered.
In relation to the hon. Member's question about port modernisation grants, for which my right hon. Friend the Minister of Transport is responsible, it was with reluctance that we came to the conclusion that the primary function of the sort of craft that we have been discussing this evening is to transport goods to and from ships; these craft are not a part of what we should define as a port handling Operation, and therefore we should not make port modernisation grants available.
The wider question raised by the hon. member—whether transport within the United Kingdom should qualify for Investment incentives—was considered by Her Majesty's Government before the White Paper on investment incentives was published in January of last year. The Government, for reasons that were not only fully set out but thoroughly debated —as the hon. Member showed from his speech—decided not to give incentive grants to the service industries. This is still the position, though I shall naturally draw the attention of my right hon. Friend the President of the Board of Trade to the grievances which the hon. Member expressed about the way in which this grant System is working.

Mr. Patrick Jenkin: Adverting to the powers of the Minister of Transport to make grants under the Harbours Act, 1964, did I understand the Minister of State to say that, albeit reluctantly, the

Ministry had come to the conclusion that there could be no grants under that Act for lighterage? If so, what was the purpose of including in the 1964 Act—and picking it up without amendment in the 1966 Act as one of the subjects which would qualify for grant—lighterage, or the handling of goods in harbour?

Mr. Swingler: I am not saying that under no circumstances can it be considered; I am speaking now of the administrative application of the provisions included in those Statutes and saying that up to now, in relation to the position of the lighterage industry and the sort of schemes being talked of, we had reluctantly come to the conclusion that they do not come under the heading of port modernisation or port handling Operations, as they should be defined, because of the nature of the craft being used and the function which they are fulfilling. Nevertheless, arising from the point made by the hon. Member, I am prepared to consider the matter again in regard to our interpretation of our obligations and responsibilities, and to discuss it with those specifically concerned in the trade, as well as to draw the attention of my right hon. Friend the President of the Board of Trade to the matters that concern him under the scheme of investment grants.
We are therefore sympathetic to my hon. Friend's desire and the desire expressed by other hon. Members to see the maximum use made of the River Thames, and to grapple with the serious Problems that undoubtedly confront the lighterage trade on account of technical and economic developments. But in considering them it is no good burying our heads in the sand.
As we are on the eve of the Second Reading debate on the Transport Bill, I should mention that we are bringing forward certain proposals for a further taxing of heavy lorries, because we consider that the economic weightings between the various modes of transport may not be as efficient or as just as they should be. Bearing in mind that heavy lorries will have to pay extra because of their wear and tear on the roads, those who consider that road transport has so far been having an unfair advantage may agree that we have done something in the Bill to redress the balance, in the


interests of those who are advocating a greater use of the river.
Nevertheless, I agree that it would be wrong for us merely to set out to prop up a form of transport in circumstances where its continued use would be inimical to the full development of modern means of goods handling, on which the ultimate prosperity and efficiency of our ports depend. We must all see that developments in lighterage are in line with efficient cargo handling developments which are now expanding throughout our ports. I believe that the proposals for ports reorganisation, which we are now discussing with all concerned, will contribute towards this end. We shall consider carefully any other proposals put forward in the course of this interesting debate.

Mr. Alan Lee Williams: Owing to the reasonably satisfactory reply of my hon. Friend, I beg to ask leave to withdraw the Motion.

Motion, by leave, withdrawn.

UNEMPLOYMENT (DEVELOPMENT AREAS)

5.57 p.m.

Dr. John Dunwoody (Falmouth and Camborne): I beg to move.
That this House expresses its concern at the high unemployment rates to be found in the development areas; and, while welcoming those Government actions which have stimulated the economy of the regions, calls, as a matter of urgency, for further measures to attract new industries and to raise social and economic Standards as well as employment levels to at least the national average.
Unemployment is a social Cancer. It is evil, not just for the individual who is out of work but for the Community, especially when the unemployment level rises to a high figure. It is an evil on which can grow despondency, disillusion, and social disruption, and from which, all too often, come delinquency and crime. It is a cause of much misery today— misery that is concentrated in certain areas.
I am concerned about the problem of unemployment at a national level, but my main concern this evening is with the development areas—those parts of the country that we recognise to be facing

serious economic problems, often of long Standing; parts of our country that also have to put up with higher rates of unemployment than the country as a whole.
I want to quote figures for the last two months to demonstrate this. In October, unemployment over the whole country was 2·4 per cent. In November, it was 2·5 per cent. Taking the development areas as a whole we find that for those two months the respective figures were 4 per cent. and 4·1 per cent. Indeed, in relation to some of the more difficult development areas—and undoubtedly in parts of other development areas; because in the bigger development areas these figures do not demonstrate the variations from place to place very well —there was an even greater gap between the average and the average for the whole country. The South-West Development Area—a part of which I have the honour to represent—had an October unemployment rate of 4·8 per cent., which rose in November to 5·7 per cent.
At the same time, if we look around one or two of the big cities outside the development areas we see a different picture. In October, unemployment in London was 1·2 per cent., in Birmingham and Manchester 2·2 per cent., in Sheffield 2·1 per cent. and in Leeds 1·9 per cent. These figures are not only much below those in any development areas but are also well below the national average, which underlines the problem which I hope to describe.
But, as I said, these figures conceal the variations which exist in the bigger development areas. This is probably particularly true of the Northern development area and of the Welsh and Scottish development areas. Even so, however, these statistics which we so lightly use are only the tip of an iceberg which represents the neglect of human resources in many parts of the country. The much larger hidden part is represented by the numbers of workers on short time, by those who do not have the opportunity to do the overtime which is accepted as the rule elsewhere, by the number of unemployed women and elderly workers who are not registered as unemployed in many development areas, and, perhaps more seriously than any other factor, by emigration from these areas of a significant proportion, particularly of the most able young men and women.
I welcome the fact that many able young men and women in the development areas want to move to other parts of Britain and of the world, but I object to young people with skills being driven out of the development areas because there are not the occupational opportunities there near their homes which they have both the skill and the ability as well as the wish to take up.
I must welcome what has already been done. For the first time, over the last few years, we have begun to tackle this Problem. We may not be much nearer a Solution, but real progress has been made. Particularly when one considers the development areas as a whole, which includes a large proportion of our surface area, the results of the measures already taken are encouraging, but the picture is less cheering for particular places in the development area.
When one compares one development area with another or one part of a given development area with the less fortunate parts one finds the black Spots, the hard core problem areas, which have been recently encouragingly recognised by the designation of "special" development areas, sections of existing development areas to which expert extra assistance will be given. Regrettably, these are at the moment linked almost exclusively with colliery closures. I do not object to this, but I hope that we may be assured that the concept of a special development area will not be linked to just one industry, since there are many other parts of the country which possibly face problems of defining traditional industries.
We must re-examine our methods of assisting development areas and ask our-selves whether we can now, after the experience of the last few years, make the existing measures, which we are using with effect, much more sophisticated! At the moment, the whole of the country is either a development area or not a development area. There is no halfway house. Until the concept of the special development area was introduced, there was no distinction between development areas. I hope that, in the not too distant future, a greater degree of selectivity will be introduced in our means of assisting development areas, along with much greater sensitivity, so that the assistance to and Stimulus of industry there is much more directly proportional to their needs
In this context, I am talking about comparatively small areas. I would like us to go right down to labour exchange level, so that we could solve some of the difficult problems of certain areas which have consistent unemployment rates of 10, 12 and 15 per cent., areas which often require only some extra incentive for an industrialist to move in to solve their problems.
I know that the Hunt Committee is considering related problems to that of introducing greater selectivity and sensitivity in encouraging the movement of industry. The Committee's prime concern, of course, is with the grey areas which often lie geographically just outside the existing development areas, but I hope that we will use its recommendations and suggestions when they appear to help solve some of the problems of existing development areas.
Eventually, I would like the aid and Stimulus to industrialists to move into development areas and build up the social fabric, aid to be graduated, and some thought to be given to the problem in terms of central Government assistance to local authorities, as we do at the moment. We have a complex formula for determining how much each local authority should receive from central Government, which takes into account all sorts of variables between areas, like density of population, age structure, number of school children and old folk and so on.
These are all important factors in local authority finance but it should be possible now to create a similar formula for reaching a figure for each area, so that there is an index of social and industrial economic need instead of this black and white concept, with aid graduated in direct proportion to the needs of a given Community at a given time, since these needs vary from time to time.
More jobs are needed in our development areas. This is not a simple question of new industries but one of attracting the right industries for each place, industries with a real future, reasonably sound economically and employing the sort of people who are lining up outside the local labour exchanges, whether skilled men, women or any other workers. We should also consider the problems of existing


industry—not only the serious problems of the declining, more traditional industries, but also the problems of those which are established and are doing reasonably well in the development areas.
We should also pay much more attention to some means of indicating when an industrial concern in a development area is about to close down. There was a recent example in my constituency, of which my hon. Friend knows—and there must be many others in other parts of the country—of no prior notice of such a closure being given to the Government. It makes nonsense of much of Government policy if we devote so much time, effort, money and manpower to attracting new industries without any means of retaining existing industry and employment opportunities.
We should seriously consider the place of public ownership in development areas. I am thinking not only of the advance factories which have in some cases been lying idle, but also of the whole question of stimulating the economy of some of these difficult areas. I do not suggest the use of public ownership for doctrinaire reasons. There is a sound and practical reason, when it is patently obvious that private industry, although not unwilling, is incapable of solving particular problems.
More than anything, a sense of urgency is needed. For too long we have tended to take time, appoint committees and discuss these matters, but time is not on our side. We also need a sense of enthusiasm, which I sometimes think is lacking in Government Departments, particularly when we are trying to attract industry to development areas. All too often we rely on the financial carrot which we dangle before the industrialist's mouth.
Let us talk about the wonderful opportunities for firms moving to development areas and about the advantages of living in areas like the far South-West, Scotland, Wales and the North. All too often we do not talk about the positive reasons for industrialists to move out of the dark, dirty and congested areas of London, the South-East and the Midlands. We should approach this more positively than we have perhaps done in the last two or three years; we must "sell" the development areas.
We must do more to raise social Standards in the development areas. One need only consider housing to see what is happening in these poorer parts of the country. Housing Standards in the development areas are deplorable and are far worse than elsewhere in the country. There are many houses in my constituency without mains sanitation or the possibility of having this amenity in the foreseeable future. The lowest percentage of bathrooms in homes exists in the development areas and the same applies to most other facilities.
Social Standards must be raised in other spheres; including, for example, in education. I was shocked to note recently in a reference book that the 24 universities opened since the war—only three of them in Scotland—are not in development areas. In other words, even in education we are concentrating more opportunities for young people in the already prosperous parts of the country. The same can be said of the health Services. The shortage of doctors is most acute in the old industrial areas of South Wales, the North country and Scotland. And hospital Services in the development areas are nowhere near as good as in the other parts of the country.
Consider Communications. We have completed an impressive Programme of building motorways and an even more impressive programme lies ahead, but most of this building has taken place outside the development areas. Only a very few miles of motorways have been built in, or are planned for the development areas. Communications are good until they reach these areas, but they virtually collapse upon reaching the development areas. This applies to main road, rail and, to some extent, air links.
When trying to attract new industries to the depressed areas, when endeavouring to bring in opportunities for employment and when trying to enhance the Standard of life in these areas, we must consider the cultural side of life. This has been neglected in the development areas. An indication of this is the way in which the B.B.C. and, to a lesser extent, I.T.V. developed in the early days of television. At first it was the development of a second Station and, later, the introduction of colour television. No one ever suggested starting those developments in the development areas.
Why should they always be started in London and the Midlands? Why should my constituents have to pay the same licence fees but have the opportunity of seeing only two television Channels, neither of them in colour? Why should my constituents be obliged to invest money so that experiments can be conducted for the benefit, certainly initially, of people living in more prosperous areas far away?

Dr. Hugh Gray: Would my hon. Friend agree that it would be a good idea if, when large grants are being given to, say, symphony orchestras in London, a condition should be that for a certain number of months each year the orchestra should tour the provinces, as they must do in Czechoslovakia?

Dr. Dunwoody: That is an interesting idea which I would like to see pursued. A great deal more should be done to spend money on cultural activities in the development areas. If only a small Proportion of the financial assistance that is at present given for cultural activities to the more prosperous areas was given to the development areas, the whole cultural quality of life would be improved.
We must improve the economic Standards in the development areas, for it is in these areas that rates of pay are at their lowest. Having noticed that the rates of pay in the County of Cornwall, which is virtually the South-West Development Area, were the lowest in England, I inquired to discover where rates of pay were even lower, and when I was given the answer I found that although those localities were few, they were all in the development areas. Yet it is in these outlying parts that, partly because of transport costs, costs generally are higher, with the Single exception of housing. We therefore expect the people living in the development areas to tolerate not only a lower Standard of pay and, therefore, a lower Standard of living, but also higher costs of living.
It would be a measure of social justice for us to attempt to improve this State of affairs. I therefore ask in the Motion that we bring the Standards in the development areas up to at least those of the national average. I appreciate that this will require a massive, co-ordinated effort. In these areas we face at least a

century of neglect and I accept that the errors of the past cannot be put right overnight. To suggest that they could be put right in one, two or three years would be naïve. However, almost every Government Department must be involved in this battle, and I am glad to see a Minister representing the Department of Economic Affairs here to answer the debate because that Department has the duty to co-ordinate these efforts.
If we do not take this step, there will be no Solution to the economic ills of this country and there will be little hope for the deprived areas as a whole. The whole nation must share in the economic progress which, I am sure, will be ours in the years ahead. This means that every development area has a right to share in this progress. They are prepared to share the burdens. They must also share the benefits. Every individual has the right to work. It is our duty to transform that right into reality.

6.16 p.m.

Mrs. Winifred Ewing: Scots will recall that unemployment peaks are nothing new in Scotland. There have been nine squeezes since the war and I need not remind the experienced politicians around me of the dates. In July 1966, the latest freeze and squeeze started, but we are still enduring it, and recently we had devaluation.
There are a few complaints which I must get out of my System at the beginning of my speech. I agree with Dr. Dunwoody that the rate of unemployment in Scotland is far too high—this is the theme on which I wish to concentrate today—and is not acceptable, whatever one means for "acceptable". We have been told that 2·4 per cent. is acceptable, but since the Scottish unemployment rate has not been at the acceptable rate in the memory of many hon. Members present today, I wonder why successive Governments have gone on accepting it.
We in Scotland get the worst of all possible worlds. Combined with this high unemployment rate, we have fewer Jobs and must pay higher prices for our food, fuel and many other essentials required by people in the lower wage brackets— and we have lower wages as well. The Situation is disguised by our disgraceful emigration rate, which is running at about 45.000 a year of our best Citizens.


We do not lose the lame, blind, delinquent, physically and mentally handicapped. We lose out best people, those who are readily employable and who comprise the skilled and professional classes.
We were told that the July, 1966, measures would be the springboard to expansion, but we in Scotland have found that they are proving to be the gangway to the emigrants' ship for many of the Citizens we cannot afford to lose. We are told that things will get worse before they get better. Lord Robens has estimated that we will lose 30,000 jobs in Scotland's coal mining industry. Devaluation can only make the Situation blacker. The unemployment rate in Lanarkshire is far from "acceptable". In the autumn it increased from 5·6 per cent to 6·5 per cent. Where it Stands today I do not know, but I am hopeful of finding out.
The freeze and squeeze has not been the right policy to cure the unemployment and other ills of which Dr. Dunwoody spoke. We were told that this policy was designed to cure us of over-spending and luxury living. If one goes around the development area about which I am speaking—which is almost the whole of Scotland—one finds that, in addition to finding all the other social ills, that very few people indeed are suffering from either of these two diseases. But we got the freeze and the squeeze just the same.
A comparison of export figures for Scotland and the United Kingdom, provided by the Scottish Council (Development and Industry), expressed as a percentage of total Output of manufacturing industry, demonstrates that Scotland is above the level of the United Kingdom. It is also demonstrated that in 1966 the Scottish worker's export rate was higher than that in the United Kingdom, and second only to that in West Germany. Whereas in the first part of 1967 United Kingdom Output dropped, Scotland's Output did not. Many of us in Scotland feel that we have already done our bit to bolster the economy. We do not have a balance of payments problem. Our exports are rising. The Selective Employment Tax was an unsuitable measure for Scotland. It hit many areas of life with disastrous results. It directly and im-

mediately affected the number of houses being built, and lack of housing is one of Scotland's most crucial social ills.
The freeze-and-squeeze was not justifiable, and it is time that we had policies tailor-made to fit us in Scotland. As it is, Westminster is for us the West End misfit shop. I shall not repeat the excellent arguments advanced by Dr. Dunwoody, though I take them as being applicable to my case also. I agree with him that it is surprisingly difficult to sell certain areas, I cannot imagine why any-one would not move to live in Scotland as against England if they could choose freely.
As I want to be construetive, let me quickly suggest one or two things I would do were I at the helm. Time will not permit me to go into them in detail in an Adjournment debate, and in any case, the House might not wish me to do so. Basically, Communications are the heart of a great deal of industry, but we are not getting them. Norway, a country comparable with Scotland, has managed to encourage the growth of population in remote areas. In Scotland, we have a declining population. Norway regards Communications as a social Service, and that should be the basic attitude to the development area of which I speak.
Freight charges should also be looked at from this point of view, and decentralisation should really be carried out. That the head Office of the Forestry Commission should be in England is a very curious comment on the future development of the industry. The effect on Bank Rate of devaluation will be disastrous for us.
The retraining of our unemployed in Scotland seems to need a great deal of investigation. It appears that when issuing the necessary forms to applicants certain employment exchanges in Scotland indicate that unless the applicants are prepared to delete from their application form those parts that would enable them to remain in Scotland the applications will not be considered. Applicants have been told that if they are not prepared to work in England, they cannot be accepted for vocational training. This attitude to retraining makes cynics of all those in Scotland who come into contact with it.

Mr. Tarn Dalyell: The hon. Lady has referred to forestry. Is it


not the fact that massive advances have been made during the past three years, and that planting in Scotland is now up to 32,000 acres per annum?

Mrs. Ewing: That strengthens my argument that the head office should be in Scotland, where the industry's major development really lies. But I agree that much has been done, and that more acreage has been authorised for the future.
Some cuts and stringencies should begin at home—in Whitehall. I find that from 1964 to 1967 the number of civil servants increased by 44,400, with an increased wage bill of £75 million. I find that the Ministry of Technology has seven buildings in Scotland, but 86 in England and that its proportion of expenditure is £28 million in Scotland and £580 million in England. The Ministry of Defence alone has 33 buildings in London, with over 2 million Square feet of office space. This seems to be an example of Parkinson's Law gone wild. A lot of defence spending might be spent more wisely in developing the development areas.
Addressing himself recently to the people of Britain, the Prime Minister asked us all to put Britain first. Scotland has been doing precisely that for too long, but the Scots are at last finding out, and have decided to take steps at elections to express their view.
Mr. Willie Ross, speaking, presumably, for the Government, said that we could not isolate Scotland from the freeze and the squeeze, but there is a way in which Scotland can do this and get measures to improve her Situation in all the respects that have been discussed by voting for the party which can.

Mr. Speaker: Order. I did not interrupt the hon. Lady at the time, but hon. Members refer to each other here not by name but by the names of constituencies.

Mrs. Ewing: I am very sorry, Mr. Speaker.

6.26 p.m.

Mr. Alec Jones: A week of two ago we debated a White Paper, Wales: The Way Ahead, part of which read:
 The greatest resource of Wales is its people ‖

That is equally true of the remainder of the United Kingdom. Yet in all the development areas we find that these human resources have in the past been most shamelessly neglected. Representing a Rhondda constiuency, in the development area of Wales, it is natural that I should concentrate my remarks on Wales, but I believe that what I have to say about Rhondda and Wales is equally true and valid of every other development area.
Throughout my life so far, unemployment in Rhondda has been a matter of varying degrees of height. Sometimes it has been exceptionally high, sometimes rather high, but always it has been too high. Today, the problem is much more acute, because we have to deal not only with the closure of collieries and the run-down of the coal mining industry, but with past neglect—something for which the party opposite bears a very heavy responsibility.
During the decade 1956–66, the total number of employees in Great Britain as a whole rose by 8·4 per cent. but in Wales it grew only by 5·3 per cent. In addition, the whole of the Welsh increase was represented by female employment. This is certainly evidence of the neglect of those 10 years. This Government will be judged by the people on the success of their regional policies. I want the Government to succeed, because they are my Government and because they come from my own party. Above all, I want them to succeed because that will be for the betterment of the people whom I represent.
If we look at the Government's chosen instruments of regional policy—the advance factory programmes, the investment grants, the I.D.C.s and the dispersal policies—they are all more powerful than any used by previous Governments. However, I am convinced that such weapons are not enough to attract new and viable industries to development areas such as Rhondda and Wales. They are inadequate and slothful. They take too long to have any impact upon the problem.
Furthermore, these measures could not hope to succeed against a background of national deflation, and I hope that we will use the opportunity presented to us by devaluation to return speedily to the policies of expansion and full employment.


In most development areas it seems to me that the problem can only be solved by the rapid introduction of new, modern, viable industries. The Government's present instruments are too slow to deal with the problem.
In my own constituency, almost the whole of the few new developments taking place are by existing long-established firms. We have failed completely to attract new industry and, without it, we cannot recreate a modern industrial background to give us all the social advantages spoken about by my hon. Friend the Member for Falmouth and Camborne (Dr. John Dunwoody).
During the Summer Recess, I visited a considerable number of factories in Rhondda and found evidence of management and men working hard to make a success of the industries in which they are engaged. Without those existing industries, we should be in a pretty dreadful plight.
What worries me is the complete failure to attract new industries. In Rhondda, there are two factories, one of which has been empty for a 12-month and the other for two years. If present policies of inducement and persuasion fail to fill these factories quickly, it is time that we implemented new policies. I believe that the policies which we should implement are those which we on this side advocated as a Party in 1964 with regard to the extension of public enterprise. It is interesting to note that we said then that we would establish control over the location of new factories, and we have done that through the I.D.C. policy. We said that we would offer inducements to firms to move to certain areas, and we have offered massive inducements. Further, we said that we would accept the idea of the establishment of new public enterprises where these proved to be necessary. The delay in solving the employment problem in development areas shows that the time is now ripe for public enterprises to be established.
I have read the recent Report by my hon. Friend the Member for Bucking-ham (Mr. Maxwell) in which he draws attention to the fact that public spending accounts for about 41 per cent. of the gross national product. Can this vast purchasing power not be used to promote growth in the development areas? Can

the Government not persuade and encourage local authorities to combine and use their purchasing power to promote growth inside their own areas? I know that I am repeating what has been said in the House on many occasions. Tragically, they are suggestions which have been dismissed.
I conclude by quoting from The Guardian of 28th November. It contains a contribution by Mr. Dan Smith, Chair-man of the Northern Economic Planning Council, a man with considerable experience of trying to tackle the problem of unemployment in the development areas. He said:
 If, among the many other things, devaluation buys the time to begin the major correction of the imbalance between the various regions in the country, it can be of historic significance. But it needs drastic action in this direction now. The Government must use its own purchasing power to influence the movement of industry and commerce on a massive scale. It can make a decisive beginning on this at once. An efficient public sector can do as much to make our exports competitive as any other factor.
The interesting feature of those remarks is the emphasis on the need for drastic action now. It seems to me that the problem of unemployment will be solved only when the Government accept that there is a vital rôle which can be and ought to be played by public enterprise.

6.36 p.m.

Mr. Nicholas Scott: The hon. Member for Falmouth and Camborne (Dr. John Dunwoody) was fortunate in drawing first place in the Ballot, but slightly less fortunate in having his subject come up for debate on a day on which the Prime Minister has told us that there will be a need for further political sacrifices from the nation. We look forward to hearing from the Minister what degree of political sacrifice will be required from the development regions, because I am certain that much of the burden will fall on them. I do not suppose that one needs to warn hon. Members opposite that, even if the Minister seeks to say that they will be insulated or exempted from the effects of the proposed measures, they should take that sort of Statement with a large pinch of salt.
We have heard the promise before. On 20th July, when the freeze was intensified, the Prime Minister said that


the development areas would be exempted from the effects of the measures then announced, yet, steadily and relentlessly, unemployment in the development areas has risen since then. It was 2·7 per cent. in August, 1966, 2·8 per cent. the following month, 3·2 per cent. the following month, and the figure Stands at 4·1 per cent. today. There has been a steady and remorseless rise, and in no way have the development areas been exempted from the Government's measures.
It might be possible to argue that the development areas have done rather better in times of squeeze than they did under previous Administrations. How-ever, if one compares the 16-month period from July, 1961 to November, 1962 with that from July, 1966 to November, 1967, one finds that three of the development areas have done rather better under the present Administration, but three have done rather worse. Certainly, they have done no better, and in no sense have they been exempted from the Government's economic measures. I do not expect that they will be exempted from the additional burdens which the whole country will have to share because of the incompetence of this Government.
One particularly disturbing feature of the present Situation in the regions is that long-term unemployment is well above average. If one compares the present figures for those unemployed for periods of over eight weeks, which is the most serious type of unemployment, they are above average and well in excess of those for November, 1962, which is the comparable point of the squeeze under the Conservative Administration. In the Northern Region, the figure is 59 per cent., as opposed to 53 per cent. In the South-West, it is 51 per cent., as opposed to 41 per cent. In the North-West, it is 53 per cent., as opposed to 51 per cent. Overall for Great Britain, 54 per cent. of those wholly unemployed have been unemployed for more than eight weeks, compared with 49 per cent. in November, 1962.
This is one of the most disturbing aspects of the present impact of Government policy, because it is long-term unemployment—unemployment for periods of eight weeks and longer—which is the most damaging, the most souldestroying, and the most akin to a cancer, as was

pointed out by the hon. Member for Falmouth and Camborne. It argues for a massive training Programme on the part of the Government.
One point that I want to raise with the Minister is the extent to which adult retraining is still being hampered by the attitude of the trade unions towards adult trainees. The Minister of Labour has told us that there are still parts of the country where the attitude of the trade unions is a considerable obstacle to the acceptance of adult trainees. It has been said that the Manchester G.T.C. was closed largely as a result of the un-helpful attitude of the trade unions in that area. It would be helpful to hear from the Minister what progress has been made on the front of securing increased co-operation on the part of the trade unions towards adult trainees.
Far from exempting the regions from the effect of their policies, the Government have done positive damage to the regions. The hon. Lady the Member for Hamilton (Mrs. Ewing) drew attention to the way in which the Selective Employment Tax has hit particularly hard at the regions. Of course, this is true of Scotland, but in the South-West, which has the highest proportion of any region of people employed in Service industries, the impact of the Selective Employment Tax has been savage.
The Guardian, in an article in May, 1966, said, in trying to assess the impact of Selective Employment Tax, that the Midlands stood to gain most from the tax and the South-West stood to lose most from it. I believe that all our experience since then has borne out that forecast. The attempt to mitigate the follies of S.E.T. by moving to R.E.P. has only compounded, and will be shown only to have compounded, those follies. We need a much more serious study of the best tax methods of helping the development regions.
In two minutes I want to run through the points which we believe the Government should adopt to help the regions. First, it must be realised that the regions can be looked at only in the context of the whole country. There cannot be prosperous and growing development areas in the context of a stagnant, poor country. It is a contradiction in terms. We shall get prosperous development regions with a rising Standard of living


and the rising social and cultural Standards referred to by the hon. Member for Falmouth and Cambome only when the country again has a high growth rate. I am very doubtful whether this can ever be achieved under this Administration. Until we return to a high growth rate, factories in the regions will remain empty and firms will not move to the regions.
Progress in the regions depends upon confidence—upon confidence in the future, upon confidence in the ability to make profits and build up businesses. This is a confidence which is notably lacking in the context of the present economic Situation. This is a confidence which demands changes in our taxation policy and a return to incentives.
The Government should give up their investment grant system and return to investment allowances and free depreciation. A thorough study should be made of the reasons why firms have in the past moved to development areas. We should analyse their motives for doing so and their experiences since they have gone there. We should work out what changes are needed in inducements to firms to move to development areas. More should be spent on the infrastructure and transport Systems in development areas.
Only when we get a return to prosperity in Britain as a whole can the regions look forward themselves to prosperity. We need incentives on the taxation front. We need the pressures of competition. We need a new structure of industrial relations. We need an attack on restrictive practices. We need a whole new outlook and a return to a high-earning, high-efficiency economy. I do not believe that we can get that under this Administration.

6.45 p.m.

The Joint Under-Secretary of State for Economic Affairs (Mr. Alan Williams): I want, first to thank the hon. Member for Paddington, South (Mr. Scott) for his courtesy in agreeing to curtail his remarks. I know how difficult it is when an hon. Member who wants to get through a substantial speech finds that he has been left with only 10 minutes. I am grateful for the hon. Gentleman's co-operation.
The hon. Gentleman said that in the present economic circumstances, where

changes in certain policies may be envisaged, the development areas might suffer. A fundamental facet of the policy is that the development areas shall have top priority in the move into the exportled boom, which I shall deal with later. I want to make it clear that it is a far higher priority than the development areas ever had under the Conservatives.
I am grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Falmouth and Camborne (Dr. John Dunwoody) for giving us this opportunity to discuss development areas. I represent a development area constituency and I have the utmost sympathy with the points my hon. Friend made in his most helpful and very constructive speech. I have noted his point about prior notice of closure of firms. Although mention was not made of it today, I know that my hon. Friend the Member for Rhondda, West (Mr. Alec Jones) would have particular sympathy in this respect because of experiences he has had of firms closing in his constituency at short notice. I have noted this point and will study it.
I further agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Falmouth and Camborne that it is imperative, when we try to sell the development areas, that we sell them for their social opportunity as well as for their industrial opportunity. We should sell the good and attractive side of life in development areas instead of showing gloomy terraced houses and slag heaps, thus deterring people from going to such areas.
My hon. Friend also touched on the problem of motorways. We must bear in mind that a true indication of the transport provision in an area is not gained merely by looking at the transport figures within that area. It is not only the transport within the locality. Hon. Members opposite will agree that the Strategic road Services to a locality matter every bit as much. For example, the M4 across England is as important to Wales as it is to England, because it links Wales with the mass markets of London.
In the short time left to me I want to deal with the general position of Government policy. I intimated earlier that we regard development area policy as fundamental to our economic strategy. I will not go into this in any depth. We have covered this topic in many past debates. We do not merely regard the unused resources as unacceptable in human


terms, as my hon. Friend the Member for Falmouth and Camborne said. We are not particularly happy that the slack is there, but given that it is there, economically we have the slack on which we can found an expansion for our exports in the next few years.
Secondly, we regard the regions with fundamental sympathy, because this is a way in which we can avoid the continuous cycle of regional inflation which has beset us in the London area, in the South-East, and in the Midlands, in the past.
It would be naïve to pretend, and no hon. Member has pretended, that the nature of the development area problem is simple. It is a complex problem, because there is a whole series of variables at work at one and the same time. These areas start from a position of disadvantage in that they have very low activity rates. They start from another position of disadvantage, in that they are by definition—this is why they are scheduled as development areas—areas which already have a high unemployment rate. The third disadvantage from which they suffer—this was touched on by my hon. Friend the Member for Rhondda, West—is that they had a grossly inadequate share of development in Britain during the period when the Conservatives were in office.
In the period during which right hon. Gentlemen opposite were in office regions containing development areas saw an expansion in Jobs of 6 per cent. compared with 15 per cent. in regions without development areas. In Wales, for example, if the increase in the labour Force had been the same as that in the labour force in Britain as a whole, there would have been 30,000 more jobs when hon. Members opposite left office, while in Scotland there would have been 190,000 and in the North 65,000 more. One can imagine what would have been the impact of the diversification which would have followed in the events of the last few years and on our economic difficulties. One can imagine the impact on the very high emigration from these areas, 200,000 people leaving them during the last ten years of office of right hon. Gentlemen opposite.
The Motion asks for further and urgent measures and my hon. Friend the Mem-

ber for Falmouth and Camborne said that we should try to make our development area policy more sophisticated. The Government completely agree with him and I should like to demonstrate that we do not have a static approach to the problem. Essentially, we have an evolving and dynamic policy towards these localities, and the Hunt Committee demonstrates that we are willing to refine the policy even further if that should be necessary.
The first change which we undertook when we came to office was from the district concept, so liked by right hon. Gentlemen opposite, to the area concept. Whereas in 1962 7·5 per cent. of the working population was in development districts, and 12·5 per cent. in 1963, today the figure is 21 per cent. We made the change because we felt that it was necessary to create a wider industrial base both within and outside the localities of great difficulty. We did that to make the areas viable and so to generate the purchasing power which in turn would perpetuate the development of market-based firms, the type of firms which now tend to be attracted to the Midlands and London.
We then undertook another change of approach. We switched from tax allowances to investment grants. The old allowance System was too slow in Operation and worked only as the firm actually made profits, and yet the early years of its establishment in a development area might be the time when it most needed help and also might be the time when its profits were lowest and it would there-fore get the least benefit from allowances. Allowances were therefore unpredictable to a business man making decisions and were consequently of little help as an inducement to firms to go to these localities.
We moved to a grant System to meet these very problems. It is now quicker in payment, which is now made in 12 months—we have already accelerated payment from 18 to 12 months—and we hope to be able to reduce the period even more in the not too distant future. A further advantage is that the amounts are predictable, so that business men can therefore undertake investment decisions knowing precisely what sort of return they would get from the Government.


Already the 20 per cent. differential enjoyed by development areas is costing the Government £40 million a year.
We have undertaken further development of the policy again to demonstrate that our approach is not static. We have added to incentives tied to capital the incentives for labour-intensive industry and it is against that background that we have to see the regional employment premium of £100 million expenditure which we hope will create 100,000 Jobs in the next four or five years.
A further refinement since we came to office is that we have changed from a single-tier System to a System of differentiated areas. We have now added the special areas which get further inducements over and above those given to development areas generally. In addition to all these factors we have stepped up the grants under the Local Employment Acts so that we are now paying grants at virtually double the rate paid by right hon. Gentlemen opposite in the early 1960s.
Training has also been accelerated. Firms undertaking training are given help with capital costs and help with costs per head and we have set up the G.T.C.s. The hon. Lady the Member for Hamilton (Mrs. Ewing) spoke of certain limitations being imposed in Scotland on those applying for places at the G.T.C.s. We have no knowledge whatever of that and if she is right—and I do not suggest that she is misleading the House—I would appreciate it if as quickly as possible she would let us have documentary evidence so that we can examine it and ensure that it does not happen again.
We have also to bear in mind the massive programme of advance factories for the development areas. Right hon. Gentlemen opposite cannot sit disinterestedly, as they now do, and then justify the fact that during the whole period of their office only 49 advance factories were completed, whereas we have already completed 53 and have approved 124 since October, 1964. Right hon. Gentlemen opposite were so complacent about development areas that they actually suspended the building of advance factories in the 1950s and we are now having to make up for that backlog of inadequacy. There is also the incentive for dealing with derelict land and there is the dispersal of Government Offices.
How effective is the Government's policy proving?

Mr. Neil Marten: Very ineffective.

Mr. Williams: No one would deny that the prevailing unemployment figures are high, higher than we would like them to be. It is no consolation to say that the proportionate increase has been less than in other parts of the country. That is not much satisfaction to the people in the dole queue. But the important factor which was overlooked by the hon. Member for Hamilton and others is that the trend is to an improvement. The basic seasonably adjusted figures are showing that unemployment in the development areas is falling and vacancies are increasing.
During the three years 1961, 1962 and 1963 right hon. Gentlemen opposite made i.d.c. provision for 36 million sq. ft. whereas in the last two and a half years we have given i.d.c. approval for 70 million sq. ft., double the amount in less time.
Hon. Members opposite have spoken of the possible effect of devaluation. If, as I suggest, we are moving into an upturn in the economy, that upturn will be accentuated by devaluation and that will have an important effect for the development areas and for industries in them. It will affect ship building, tourism and steel. If hon. Members opposite are violently against devaluation, they must equally be against the benefits which devaluation is bringing to those areas, or they must alternatively support a policy of deflation to deal with the economic Situation, and we all know what that would mean to the development area policy.
Hon. Members opposite have talked about the development area policy as though they approved of its breadth. In fact, when they were in office they had a far narrower development area concept. There are now 4 million people enjoying the benefits of development area Status who would not be enjoying it if we returned to the System of hon. Members opposite.

It being Seven o'clock, the Proceedings thereon lapsed, pursuant to Standing Order No. 5 (Precedence of Government business).

ADMINISTRATION OF JUSTICE BILL

As amended {in the Standing Committee), considered.

Motion made and Question, That the Bill be now read the Third time, put forthwith pursuant to Standing Order No. 55 (Third Reading), and agreed to.

Bill accordingly read the Third time, and passed.

TRLSTEE SAVINGS BANKS BILL

As amended (in the Standing Committee), considered.

Motion made, and Question, That the Bill be now read the Third time, put forthwith pursuant to Standing Order No. 55 (Third Reading), and agreed to.

Bill accordingly read the Third time, and passed.

BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE

The Lord President of the Council and Leader of the House of Commons (Mr. Richard Crossman): With your permission, Mr. Speaker, and that of the House, in view of the discussion tomorrow on the export of arms, I wish to make a Statement on the rearrangement of business.
Tomorrow, following a debate arising under Standing Order No. 9, we propose to deal with a Motion setting out the arrangements for the Christmas Adjournment.
In consequence, the business on Wednesday, 20th December, will be the Second Reading of the Transport Bill, when the rule will be suspended for one hour.
The 6th Supply day previously arranged for Wednesday, 20th December will be deferred until Wednesday, 17th January.
It will be proposed that on Thursday, 2Ist December, the House should meet at 11 a.m., take Questions until 12 noon and adjourn at 5 p.m., until Wednesday, 17th January, 1968.

Mr. Speaker: The right hon. Gentleman may move the Adjournment of the House so that we may discuss what he has said.

Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.—[Mr. Crossman.]

Mr. Edward Heath: I thank the Leader of the House for making that Statement about business.
The right hon. Gentleman will recall that the Opposition were promised a Supply day, which we allotted to a debate on the Middle East. We constantly asked for that and were promised it for before the House rose for the Christmas Recess. Under the new arrangement of business we are denied a Supply day and a debate on the Middle East. The Leader of the House must realise that this is unsatisfactory to us. The alternatives are to set aside an extra day before Christmas so that may we continue to have our debate on foreign affairs, which is what we should like to do, or the Leader of the House could postpone the Second Reading of the Transport Bill, which would not only give us our debate but be for the good of the country.
As the right hon. Gentleman will probably not wish to do that, can we sit an extra day before Christmas to debate the very important events in the Middle East, which have not been debated in the House since Aden took its independence?

Mr. Crossman: I am grateful to the Leader of the Opposition for what he has said. He has very fairly put before the House the alternatives resulting from the unexpected debate tomorrow. We all agree that we should not have a three-hour debate interrupting the Second Reading of the Transport Bill. That is why we must have a change.
The two alternatives were either to sit for an extra day before Christmas, until 5, or to come back two or three days earlier, and, as I have suggested, to have a two-day foreign affairs debate on 17th and 18th January and then to have Friday, making three days of extra parliamentary time in January, rather than having an extra day before Christmas.
I very much want to do what the House wants. I examined the question very carefully. My impression was that an extra day before Christmas, when everybody had made their plans already for going away on Thursday, could not only be to our disadvantage, but even more to the


disadvantage of the staff of the House, for whom I know the Opposition are very solicitous. I therefore thought it better, on balance, to keep things as they were before Christmas and to come back in the week before we were to have come back and to have our two days' foreign affairs debate in January.

Mr. Heath: I must place on record that we consider this entirely unsatisfactory. We have waited for the debate on the Middle East for so long and now we shall have to wait for it for another month. The right hon. Gentleman should take the Opposition's views more into account, because it is a Supply day for which the Opposition settle the business.

Mr. Crossman: Mr. Crossman rose—

Mr. Speaker: Perhaps the right hon. Gentleman will wait a moment or two. He must have the leave of the House every time he speaks now.

Mr. Emrys Hughes: Is it not the Opposition's fault that the business of the House has been disorganised so much?

Mr. Edward M. Taylor: In view of the Prime Minister's Statement today, would the Leader of the House postpone the Second Reading of the Transport Bill on Wednesday?, Is he aware that the Prime Minister said that we shall have a ruthless pruning of Government spending? How can he justify a Second Reading debate on a Bill which will involve spending £9,100 million on loans, write-offs and debts? How can he possibly justify it when we are cutting down the building of houses and schools?

Mr. Speaker: Order. The debate on the Transport Bill is not tonight.

Mr. Mark Carlisle: Can the Leader of the House explain how a three-hour debate tomorrow necessitates four extra days of Government business in January?

Mr. Hngh Jenkins: Can my right hon. Friend confirm that one day of the two-day foreign affairs debate which will take place when we resume will be devoted to Vietnam? I take it that that is the intention. Does he agree that it does not lie in the mouths of hon. Mem-

bers opposite, who stood up earlier today when Mr. Speaker asked if hon. Members had leave of the House, to have a special debate to complain of the consequences of their actions?

Mr. Neil Marten: While we on this side of the House are very mindful of the staff of the House, we are a Parliament and we must react to events as they are. Would the Leader of the House reconsider having the debate on the Middle East on the Thursday, because the Situation there is very serious and could be further developing in that way between now and January?

Mr. William Hamilton: On a point of Order. I think that I heard my right hon. Friend say that we were to debate the Motion for the Christmas Adjournment tomorrow. That would mean that back bench Members would not be able to table Amendments. Would you, Mr. Speaker, be prepared to accept manuscript Amendments, because some of us feel very strongly about the length of not only the Christmas Recess, but other recesses.

Mr. Speaker: I shall deal with that point of Order when it comes tomorrow.

Mr. Peter Walker: Further to the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow, Cathcart (Mr. Edward M. Taylor). Surely it would be much more reasonable, in view of the Prime Minister's Statement, if the Second Reading of the Transport Bill is to be proceeded with, to take it at the end of January, as the Bill provides for £450 million extra loans to nationalised industries and £150 million of extra Government grants. If it were in January, perhaps by that time the Government could have amended the whole Bill and we could have two days debate instead of one?

Mr. Charles Pannell: I always was rather doubtful about the arrangement to have such a long Christmas Recess. I should have thought that the country generally would be behind taking a week off it. Therefore, we are left with the question whether to have the debate on the Transport Bill before Christmas. One thing that I see in favour of that—and I speak purely on parliamentary business and shall not discuss the merits—is that with such a long and


voluminous Bill we need to get it off:he ground as soon as we can. I feel sure that if the Leader of the Opposition were in the position of my right hon. Friend's position he would take the same view as my right hon. Friend does today.
It is a good idea that we should come back a week earlier. It will allow two days for a foreign affairs debate, which is very much overdue, and it will allow the Opposition, who will not be disadvantaged by the passage of an extra week or two, to discuss the matter, on which I feel a great deal of sympathy for them. Generally speaking, the country would think that we are addressing ourselves to i he problem as vigilantly as we should.

Mr. F. P. Crowder (Ruislip-North-wood): I should like to know why, at the moment, the Leader of the House should try to change the business at short notice without giving reason. [HON. MEMBERS: "Oh."] He has given no reason whatsoever. Such reasons as he has put forward are short in the extreme and inadequate. The fact is that nobody is the least interested in a Second Reading of the Transport Bill. People are much more interested in the split in the Cabinet, which, I suppose, is the reason for these wet hen tactics. Why are we faced with this Situation? I do not see why the Leader of the House should be able to change the business at short notice without giving ample reasons.

Several Hon. Members: Several Hon. Members rose—

Mr. Speaker: Order. I hope that we can get on with the day's business.

Mr. Michael Jopling: Has not a new Situation arisen in that it is only three and a half hours since the Prime Minister stated that there was to be a fundamental review of Government expenditure and that nothing would be sacrosanct? Now, the Leader of the House says that the Transport Bill is to go on as before. It appears that the Bill is sacrosanct and that this is already a break in the Statement. In view of the Situation, and since what the Prime Minister said is shown to be completely false, should we not have further time tomorrow to consider what he said and the new Situation which has arisen?

Sir Robert Cary (Manchester, Withington): If the House is to come back a

week earlier, would it not be more sensible to postpone the Transport Bill until after Christmas, when Parliamentary time will be easier and we could do the proper thing by this enormous Measure, giving two days to the Second Reading?

Mr. Bob Brown (Newcastle-upon-Tyne, West): Will my right hon. Friend resist every pressure from the benches opposite to delay the Second Reading of the Transport Bill? I assure him that, un-like hon. Members opposite, thousands of old-age pensioners who will benefit from its travel concessions are desperately anxious to see the passage of the Bill.

Mr. Crossman: By leave of the House, perhaps I may now reply. Two points have arisen. The first is that, if we are to come back earlier after the Recess, we should postpone the Transport Bill instead of the foreign affairs debate. My right hon. Friend the Member for Leeds, West (Mr. C. Pannell) made the proper answer to that. I appreciate the desire of the hon. Member for Worcester (Mr. Peter Walker) to get the Bill into Committee as quickly as possible, because he has a mass of hard work to do on it there. If we get the Second Reading before Christmas, we shall have an extra week in Committee, which will give him more opportunity to put constructive points. That emphasises the reason for having the Second Reading before Christmas.
I appreciate the disappointment of the Opposition in having the debate on the Middle East postponed until (7th January. The debate on 18th January will also be on foreign affairs, but particularly the Far East, so that we shall have one day on the Middle East and one day on the Far East and we hope to keep them as separate as we can. On Friday, 19th January, we might debate the Report of the Committee of Privileges. We should have time to debate it then. Those are three good. solid Parliamentary occasions.
Secondly, complaint has been made about our returning earlier after the Recess. I must say that I am disappointed by the inconsistency shown. An early day Motion has been put down by Conservative back-benchers, among them the hon. Member for Glasgow, Cathcart (Mr. Edward M. Taylor). I am glad that the


agreement now is that we should not stay a day longer this week, but should, instead, have the alternative of returning earlier after Christmas. [HON. MEMBERS: "Why not do both?"] That proposition has not been put to me, but I am prepared to consider all propositions.
If it is now suggested by hon. Members opposite that they want both to come here on Friday and still have three extra days after the Recess, I will consider that, but I feel that, on reflection, they will not like that as much as my proposal. The hon. Member for Cathcart and some of his hon. Friends have been urging us to come back earlier after Christmas and I have acceded to their request. The choice was between sitting a day longer this week and getting the debate on the Middle East before Christmas and Coming back earlier in January. On reflection, I think that hon. Members will agree that it is the best Solution to come back earlier.
I have been asked why I have made this Statement. I have done so because of the debate arranged for tomorrow, which was supported unanimously by the Opposition. I thought hon. Members were entitled to the courtesy of knowing that we have now rearranged the business because of the three-hour debate tomorrow—the result of the Opposition's initiative, which I do not grudge. I have tried to make the best rearrangement I could and I hope that the House will agree.

Mr. Joseph Harper (Lord Commissioner of the Treasury): I beg to ask leave to withdraw the Motion.

Motion, by leave, withdrawn.

COAL EVDUSTRY BILL

Lords Amendments considered.

Clause 7.

(INCREASE IN MEMBERSHIP OF THE NATIONAL COAL BOARD.)

Lords Amendment No. 1: In page 4, line 24, leave out Clause 7.

7.16 p.m.

The Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Power (Mr. Reginald Free-son): I beg to move, That this House doth agree with the Lords in the said Amendment.
During the Committee stage in the Commons, my right hon. Friend undertook to consider the points which had been made on proposed Amendments to Clause 7 which were later withdrawn.
The Government now propose the deletion of this Clause. It was the intention that the Clause should provide for five additional members of the Board. The need arose because the Board had reorganised its structure and had eliminated divisions. There are now 17 areas with direct responsibility to the Board, and while this provides suitable groupings of collieries for proper management there are no longer regional entities for Scotland, Wales and parts of England where regional co-ordination is now a growing feature in many fields of economic activity. This is a characteristic which is likely to grow.
It was with this in mind, among other things, that my right hon. Friend originally proposed that there should be members of the Board with direct regional responsibility so far as the future of the coal industry was concerned. The main object, therefore, of increasing the numbers of members was to give the Board a means of dealing with regional Problems while maintaining the advantages in the management rôle of the reorganised Board structure recently introduced.
Following further consideration and in the light of the representations made in Parliament during the progress of the Bill, the Government are satisfied that the object can be attained by other means without the appointment of the additional members originally proposed and that the Clause is not necessary.
I hope, therefore, that, since the Government are meeting the wishes of hon. Members on both sides, there will be no lengthy controversy or even debate this evening. I hope that the House will agree with the Amendment.

Mr. Edward M. Taylor: The Parliamentary Secretary is referring to an Amendment which stood in my name which we discussed at about 7 a.m. during the Committee stage of the Bill. I am sure that right hon. and hon. Members on both sides of the House appreciate a Minister who is prepared to reconsider. In our view, the original proposal was crazy in seeking to increase the size of the National Coal Board at a time when the industry was declining. Far too often in the House, points which are made as we sit long into the night seem to have not the slightest effect on the Government. This is one case where the Government were prepared to think again, and I am grateful to them.

Mr. Eric Ogden: My hon. Friend the Parliamentary Secretary will, I hope, not think us uncharitable if we suspect that Clause 7 was originally put in so that it could be taken out to show that the Minister was making a concession during the progress of the Bill. However, I welcome the decision.
My hon. Friend referred to other means of achieving regional co-ordination, which is not simply to find places for regional members of the area organisation but to maintain the contact which is more vital now than ever between the regions of the Board, the areas and central headquarters.
I think that, having accepted advice from both sides of the House about this, he may be able to say, or give some indication a little later, perhaps, in some other way, what kind of machinery will now be used to maintain this link. We were all agreed that the link ought to be established and maintained; we differed about the way. I think that now some further information could perhaps be made available to the House on this point.

Mr. G. Elfed Davies: I want to say how pleased I am that the Minister has listened to both sides in

the discussion we had in Committee and has taken that advice and put things right. I am not with my hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, West Derby (Mr. Ogden), who thought Clause 7 was put in so that it could be taken out.
I believe that the Minister was genuine in putting it in. I think that he was wrong. He has admitted he was, after all, if we have a rule amongst Ministers that they sometimes admit they are wrong there is some hope not only for this Government, but for democracy. I want to congratulate the Minister for doing exactly what he said he was going to do —reconsider it and put the thing right. I welcome this Lords Amendment.

Mr. Emrys Hughes: I wish to add my congratulations to the Minister upon his acceptance of this Amendment, because the provision as it stood would have been an extremely difficult thing to explain to miners unemployed as a result of pit closures. I have no doubt that the Minister intended that provision as a method of improving the reorganisation and the efficiency of the Coal Board. This Amendment is a very timely concession, and it is hoped that when we discuss the White Paper on fuel policy there will be a similar attitude of reconciliation on the part of the Government.

Mr. Thomas Swain: I should like to add my words of congratulation to the Minister for seeing wisdom—with one eye open: I do not think he saw wisdom with both eyes open, or he would have accepted more of the Amendments which my hon. Friends and I moved or attempted to move in Committee. But, as the beggar said, we are very thankful for small mercies.
Acceptance of this Lords Amendment will no doubt have a psychological effect in the coalfields. I was in the Kent coalfield on Saturday and I heard a lot of very rough things said about the Government and the Coal Board. Still, in Kent they gave the Minister credit for having seen common sense in having had this Amendment moved in the other place to delete Clause 7.
I must again emphasise that had the Minister seen fit to accept all the Amendments which I —

Mr. Speaker: It is those Amendments which the hon. Member cannot talk about now.

Mr. Swain: I am sorry, Mr. Speaker, and I apologise to you. I still think it would have been a better Bill if they had been accepted.
With those few short words, let us hope the Bill will now have the effect—this is the main point—which this House desires it to have on the industry. Let us hope and trust that the moneys which will be available under the Bill will be spent wisely, and let us hope that there will be plenty of money available under the Bill to satisfy the social consequences thrown up as a result of pit closures.

Mrs. Margaret Thatcher: Just to prove that a woman can make the relevant point in much quicker time than men, may I say to the Minister, "Thank you"?

Question put and agreed to.

Remaining Lords Amendments agreed to.

ERSKINE BRIDGE TOLLS BILL

Not amended {in the Standing Committee), considered.

Clause 6.

(TEMPORARY SUSPENSION OR REDUCTION OF TOLLS.)

7.24 p.m

Mr. Gordon Campbell (Moray and Nairn): I beg to move, in page 6, line 33, to leave out "twenty-one" and insert "fourteen".
Clause 6 deals with the question of a reduction or Suspension of tolls on the bridge. The Clause as at present written provides that there shall not be fewer than 21 days' notice of an order for Suspension or the reduction of tolls. If the Clause we are dealing with increased tolls I and my hon. Friends would perfectly well understand the need for a considerable notice of a change so that users of the bridge would have a chance to learn beforehand that extra money would be required of them when they reached the bridge, but I submit that no

user of the bridge is likely to complain about getting rather short notice if the toll is to be reduced or suspended—that is to say, no payment is required at all.
For this reason, in Committee, we pro-posed an Amendment suggesting that the 21 days should be reduced to seven. In advising us not to press that Amendment the Minister said that it would cause some administrative difficulties if the period were as short as that. At the same time, he did indicate—he gave a broad indication, perhaps I should say—that an Amendment suggesting 14 days would be acceptable and would cause less administrative difficulty.
In the Bill we are dealing with the whole machinery for setting up a toll System for this bridge, but nothing as yet has been divulged by the Government of their views or intentions concerning the amount of the toll, or about whether there will be larger tolls for some vehicles and lesser tolls for others. This has still to be decided in the future. We certainly tried in Committee to find this out from the hon. Gentleman, but the Government, clearly, are not going to say at this stage what their own ideas are, or what intentions they have.
For this reason we feel all the more that if there are to be reductions or suspensions of whatever tolls are to be imposed on the bridge nobody using the bridge will object to having shorter notice of that than that which is provided in the Bill. Everybody will say, the sooner the Suspension or reduction the better. I move the Amendment in the confident hope that the Minister will be able to accept it.

The Minister of State, Scottish Office (Dr. J. Dickson Mabon): I am very happy, on behalf of the Government, to advise the House that we would like to see this Amendment made. I have had plenty of time since the Committee to go into the administrative difficulties which there are. I quite agree that it is a very good Amendment—in the sense which I hinted at in broad terms, that it would be a more reasonable one then, and to be preferred, to the other, which suggested seven days; and the House will understand why I support it.

Amendment agreed to.

Motion made, That the Bill be now read the Third time (Queen's Consent, on


behalf of the Crown, signified):— Question put forthwith pursuant to Standing Order No. 55 (Third Reading), and agreed to.

Bill accordingly read the Third time, and passed.

LONDON CAB BILL

7.30 p.m.

As amended (in the Standing Committee), considered.

Mr. Speaker: I have already announced what Amendments I have selected: No. 1 in the name of the hon. Member for Orpington (Mr. Lubbock) and No. 2, No. 4, No. 5, and No. 6. Amendment No. 3 k not selected.

Clause 1.

(POWER TO REGULATE FARES FOR NON-OBLIGATORY JOURNEYS.)

Mr. Eric Lubbock: I beg to move Amendment No. 1 in page 1, line 11, at end insert:
', provided that for any such journey which exceeds six miles the fare shall be not less than double the amount which the meter shows'.
This Amendment is a very simple one, as the words show. I have tabled it so that the Home Office can give some indication of its plans for the exercise of its powers under Clause 1. I do not think that it is entirely satisfactory for us to leave complete discretion in the matter in the hands of the Home Office, without any indication of how the power is to be exercised.
Mr. Speaker, I am wondering how I am to get any reaction to my Amendment, bearing in mind that there is no Minister from the Home Office present on the Government Front Bench. It is extraordinary to see two Ministers from the Scottish Office sitting there to deal with the London Cab Bill. I cannot believe that either will reply to this debate, detailed though their knowledge may be of the affairs of the Metropolis. Before I conclude my brief remarks, I hope that someone from the Home Office will appear to reinforce the large contingent from Scotland.

The Minister of State, Scottish Office (Dr. J. Dickson Mabon): I can assure

the hon. Gentleman that we will take a careful note of what he says. We shall do it with great sympathy, since we have to travel in London taxicabs all too frequently and very expensively. The hon. Gentleman must forgive my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department, who has been detained for a short time.

Mr. Lubbock: It is very unsatisfactory to have a Minister of State listening to me moving my Amendment, rather than someone from the Home Office. His remarks indicate a lack of sympathy with the problems of taxi drivers in Greater London, which is all too evident in Government spokesmen these days. It is evident, too, in the Bill, which does not go nearly far enough to help London cab drivers to get over some of the problems which have been drawn to the attention of the Government—
[Interruption.] I am glad to see that the Under-Secretary has appeared at last and will be able to listen to what I have to say.

Mr. Gordon Campbell (Moray and Nairn): In the past, I have had cause to complain about Scottish Ministers not being in the Chamber. It is surprising to find not only the Minister of State but the Secretary of State for Scotland here for a debate which does not affect them.

Mr. Lubbock: It is fantastic to see no one but Scottish Ministers on the Treasury Bench and, indeed, Scottish Tory hon. Members on this side of the House—

Mr. Speaker: Order. As an English-man, I must ask the hon. Gentleman to come back to his Amendment.

Mr. Lubbock: I was trying to give the Under-Secretary of State a little time to reappear, because he rushed into the Chamber, grinned across at us, and disappeared again. That is most extraordinary behaviour, and I cannot allow the hon. Gentleman to miss the very important remarks which I wish to make.

Mr. Mark Woodnutt: The hon. Member for Orpington (Mr. Lubbock) should be a little lenient. I would remind him that he only just "made it" himself. A little later, and his Amendment would have fallen.

Mr. Lubbock: That indicates that my timing is a good deal better than that of the Under-Secretary of State. I was watching the annunciator to ensure that I did not miss the chance of moving my Amendment. As soon as I saw the previous business appear on it, I obtained a copy of the Amendments to this Bill which I needed to make my case.
However, I cannot wait any longer to say why this Amendment should be made, in spite of the fact that the Under-Secretary of State has not reappeared. I hope that—[HON. MEMBERS: "He is here now."] I see that the hon. Gentleman is now with us. Perhaps I might start again and explain why it is necessary to make this Amendment rather than leave the powers of the Secretary of State under Clause 1 as discretionary as they are at present.
Many taxi-drivers feel that Clause 1 will be used as a means of hitting at their pockets. Once we give these powers to the Secretary of State, it may be that he will prescribe fares which are so low for journeys longer than six miles that it will be impossible to make a living out of these Operations. Taken in conjunction with Clause 2, where the Secretary of State has power to make journeys longer than six miles obligatory, taxi-drivers could be forced to go to Orpington or to London Airport for a remuneration which would not give them a living wage.
The Minister of State for Scotland indicated his prejudices when he said that frequently he has been overcharged for the journey from London Airport. That is the case with only a small minority of taxi-drivers who have exploited the Situation there, but it is not true of the vast majority who are only too pleased to take hon. Members to London Airport from the House or from London Airport to the House at a reasonable charge. If the hon. Gentleman does not accept that, he must have a distorted idea of what should be charged, unless of course he was looking back to prewar days when the cost of operating vehicles and of petrol was much less than it is today.
Although the hon. Gentleman says that he has a lot of experience of taking taxis in London, I doubt if he knows anything about it. He cannot be aware of the stringent regulations imposed by the Metropolitan Carriage Office with regard to the inspection of vehicles and the

requirement on taxi-drivers to undergo medical examinations and tests of all kinds which make it a difficult and onerous occupation. Those facts should be taken into account in determining the level of fares.
As a reasonable estimate, I think that we should write into the Bill that for any journey over six miles the fare shown on the meter should be doubled. Taking the journey to London Airport as an example, it would mean that the fare would be £3. I know that it is recommended that the fare be £2 15s., and that that is the figure displayed on notices which one finds at the Airport. However, when one considers the increasing costs imposed on taxi-drivers, I think that £3 would not be an unreasonable fare. Certainly if I were coming from London Airport to the House, I should be happy to pay £3, and I think that that is the view of the majority of people who use taxis for that journey.
If a taxi-driver is asked to go all the way to Orpington where, generally speaking, it is quite impossible to get a return fare to the centre of London, £3 would not pay him. If one takes into account all journeys of longer than six miles, double the amount shown on the meter is not at all unreasonable.
Another point in favour of the Amendment is that it would mean no alterations to meters. On Second Reading, an hon. Member pointed out that when decimal currency comes in, a further alteration to taxi meters will be necessary. That is to happen as soon as 1971, and it would be highly undesirable to have two changes in the mechanism in such a short time, thus imposing a great deal of work on the Metropolitan Carriage Office and on the cab drivers.
Between now and 1971, wherever the Secretary of State exercised his power under Clause 1, he would do it merely in the sense that double the fare shown on the meter would apply. It means no alterations. The passenger looks at the meter, does a simple piece of arithmetic, and knows what he is to be charged. Similarly, it is easy for the driver to tell the passenger how much he has to pay, there can be no dispute about the fare, and no mechanical alteration of the meter is necessary.
If the hon. Gentleman is not prepared to accept my Suggestion, perhaps he will


at least agree that there are taxi-drivers in Greater London who have expressed grave anxiety about the Home Secretary's intentions in interpreting this Clause. They see his reluctance to come forward with a positive figure during the proceedings on this Bill as an indication that his views will be harmful to them. If the hon. Gentleman is not prepared to say that the Home Office accepts my Amendment, I hope that he will give the House a concrete idea of what his Department has in mind.

Mr. Woodnutt: This is a ridiculous Amendment and I hope that the House will reject it, because we should not go to such detail in a Bill.
The hon. Member for Orpington (Mr. Lubbock), much as I respect his attitude and his worthy intentions in defending the taxi-drivers of London, which I also wish to do, talk in an airy fairy way about £3 being a reasonable fare to London Airport. I should not think he has ever travelled out to London Airport if he thinks that is a reasonable fare, because dl the taxi-drivers in London are prepared to do it for £2 10s.
I suggest that it would be much more reasonable to leave the question of what the fare should be out of the Bill. It should be left for the Home Secretary to sort this out with the trade, and have graduated meters—and there should be graduated meters. I hope that the Parliamentary Secretary will repeat the assurance which he gave in Committee on that point, so that a fair fare is agreed between the Home Secretary and the cabbies. To say that it should be double or treble is a lot of nonsense. One cannot put this sort of idea in Acts of Parliament. I hope that the House will reject the Amendment and leave it to the good sense of the Home Office and the trade to work out what the scale of fares should be.

The Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department (Mr. David Ennals): First, I owe the hon. Member for Orpington (Mr. Lubbock) an apology for not having been in my place when he started moving his Amendment. I congratulate the House on proceeding with is other business with such remarkable rapidity. I hope that we will do the same on our present business.
I cannot accept the Amendment, partly for the reason which I thought was well put by the hon. Member for the Isle of Wight (Mr. Woodnutt). In Committee I gave an assurance that when the new rates for the longer journey are prescribed, arrangements will be made to ensure that they are automatically recorded on the meters in the same way as rates for journeys of up to six miles. This is the Home Secretary's intention.
Secondly, it is only right that the Secretary of State should be able to negotiate with the trade before any rate is fixed. This is properly a matter for negotiation with the proprietors and others who represent the interests of taximen, as well as those who represent the interests of the passengers. I gave an assurance in Committee that the Secretary of State will have these consultations. Since 1869 the Secretary of State has had unfettered discretion to determine what should be the rates of Charge for journeys within the compellable limit, and there seemed to be no ground for restricting that discretion because in future it will be exercised in respect of rates of Charge for longer journeys.
Apart from the question of principle—

Sir Eric Errington: rose—

Mr. Ennals: I will give way in a moment.
Apart from the question of principle whether it is or is not right to try to prescribe the amount that should be paid in an Act rather than by negotiation with the Secretary of State, I think the principle that the hon. Gentleman submits would lead to the maximum amount of difficulty. His Amendment says,
 provided that for any such journey which exceeds six miles the fare shall be not less than double the amount which the meter shows 
Therefore, a passenger who travelled six and a half miles, just slightly over the six-mile limit, for which the charge would be, let us say, 15s., would have to pay about 32s. 6d. This would appear to be unreasonable. It would not only be unreasonable for the passenger, but it would lead almost inevitably to argument and debate between the passenger and the taxi driver.
It may be that the hon. Gentleman intended to suggest that the double fares


would come in after the six-mile limit, but this is not the effect of his Amendment. Why he should suggest that it would be less confusing for the passenger to know other than what the meter says, namely, that he should pay double the fare, I cannot understand. It seems to me far better that the meter should properly record the amount that he is expected to pay, whether he has travelled six miles or more.

Sir E. Errington: Does the hon. Gentleman realise that there is a difference, which was emphasised by the hon. Member for Orpington (Mr. Lubbock), between going out to London Airport, where there are opportunities to come back with fares, and going to Orpington or anywhere further away from the centre of London, where there is no chance of getting a fare back?

7.45 p.m.

Mr. Ennals: It is for this reason that, as was pointed out in Committee, while the Bill gives to the Secretary of State power to extend the compellable limit, this is a power which he hopes not to use and which, therefore, is not obligatory upon the taxi-driver. He is not obliged to undertake a journey of that dimension.

Mr. Woodnutt: I remind the Minister that he gave an assurance in Committee that we would have graduated meters. Therefore, this Amendment is a nonsense, because it says that the fare should be double the amount which the meter shows. If we are to have graduated meters we cannot have a section of the Bill saying that someone will pay double the amount, because the meter will show the correct amount.

Mr. Ennals: That serves only to emphasise the case that both the hon. Gentleman and I put forward, and I hope that the House will agree to reject the Amendment.

Amendment negatived.

Clause 2.

(POWER TO INCREASE LENGTH OF OBLIGATORY JOURNEYS.)

Mr. Ennals: I beg to move Amendment No. 2, in page 2, line 15, at end insert:

(4) Before making any order under this section the Secretary of State shall consult with such bodies appearing to him to represent the owners and drivers of cabs as he considers appropriate.
The effect of this Amendment is to require the Secretary of State to consult with bodies representing London cab owners or drivers before making an order under Clause 2, which gives power to extend the six-mile compellable limit.
I gave an undertaking to the hon. Member for Ilkeston (Mr. Raymond Fletcher) in Committee that the Government would consider further whether something might be written into the Bill to make mandatory the right of prior consultation which it had already been stated that the Secretary of State would carry out before making an order under Clause 2.
The new subsection (4) has been so framed as to leave it to the Secretary of State to decide which bodies he might consider appropriately representative of the trade for the purpose of consultation. This follows the normal pattern for such provisions.
The Amendment is a genuine attempt to give some form to the views which have been expressed on both sides, not only by my hon. Friend the Member for Ilkeston but also from spokesmen on the Opposition benches. I hope that they will agree that this is a genuine attempt to meet the points that were made.

Mr. Marcus Worsley: We welcome this Amendment. As the Minister has said, it goes all the way to meet the points made by his hon. Friend the Member for Ilkeston (Mr. Raymond Fletcher) and supported on this side.
I would add that he is right in framing the Amendment in such a way as to give to the Secretary of State discretion as to who he should consult. This I fully accept. The only point I want to make is that in this trade the bodies consulted in the past may at some future date, or indeed now, have ceased to be the only bodies representing the interests in that trade.
I therefore hope the hon. Gentleman will agree that as the years go by it will be part of the discretion of the Secretary of State to look at the various bodies who claim to represent various interests in the trade, and that he will keep an open mind


about whom he consults when he operates the Amendment, which I thoroughly Support.

Mr. Michael English: I do not think that anyone would object to what is in the Amendment, but there is one point which was mentioned in Committee which is not covered by it. In Committee I asked the Minister whether he would consider representing the consumer interest in this connection, and indeed in others. It seems to me that the Bill is an example of the consumer rot being consulted.
The Amendment says that the Secretary of State
 shall consult with such bodies appearing to him to represent the owners and drivers of cabs as he considers appropriate.
Why is there no representation of the consumer interest? In Committee the hon. Gentleman said that the Secretary of State himself represented the consumer interest. It seems to me that this is stretching a principle just a little too far. One knows that other Ministers consult representatives of consumer interests in other respects. Why cannot the Secretary of State do it in this connection? Presumably the right hon. Gentleman does not even use taxis, since he is driven a round in an official car.
It is possible, and reasonable, for other Ministers to consult the representatives of consumer interests on other subjects. It would be possible to do this through local authorities in the area. Indeed, it would be peculiarly appropriate to do it in London, because outside London the decision is made by local authorities and not by the Secretary of State. It seems at least reasonable to say that the G.L.C., the borough Councils, and other local authorities within the area should be consulted. I have yet to hear a good reason why they should not be. Not only do they not have the power of decision which such authorities have outside London, but according to the Amendment they will not even be consulted.
There is a second way in which consumer opinion could be consulted. There is no reason why there should not be a public opinion survey among the users of taxis, or among people generally within the area. I think that this would be peculiarly appropriate in the context of

the distance of travel. It would be a simple issue. Any user of a taxi could say whether he found the present distance convenient, or inconvenient, or whether he would find some other distance more convenient. It would be a simple matter of having a public opinion survey.
The danger of Consulting only owners and drivers of taxis is precisely the danger which might arise in any other sphere. If we were to consult only employers' associations in connection with the prices and incomes policy, or if we were to consult only the trade unions in connection with it, considerable trouble would arise.
There is another opportunity for dealing with this in another place, and I suggest that the Government should consider inserting some words to show that they are prepared to consult the consumer, as well as the producer, of the service.

Mr. Philip Goodhart: I agree with most of what the hon. Member for Nottingham, West (Mr. English) has just said. I do not agree entirely with him about the practicality of a public opinion survey, because if the question is asked, "Do you want cheaper taxis?", obviously 99 per cent. of the people questioned will opt for a cheaper Service.
I agree that consumer interests should be consulted. I do not believe that the Home Secretary will be in a position to represent the consumer unless he makes some effort to try to find out what responsible consumer organisations believe. I therefore join the hon. Member for Nottingham, West in hoping that when the Bill goes to another place some extra words will be inserted to make sure that the consumer's voiced is heard.

Mr. Ennals: I cannot give the assurance that in another place we are likely to recommend any change. This will be for the noble Lords in the other place, but there are two points which I should like to make. First, as my hon. Friend the Member for Nottingham, West (Mr. English) said, the Secretary of State represents the interests of the Community.
I was once criticised for referring too frequently to the Stamp Committee. As is well known, part of the purpose of


establishing this Committee is to look into the
 Operation, structure, and economy of the taxi cab and private hire car trades in London, to consider the respective rôles of the two Services, and the carriage of passengers in London, and the statutory controls needed for their safe and efficient Performance, and to make recommendations.
The Committee is not drawn from the trade, but from those who represent the consumer. The Committee may make recommendations which go beyond a number of provisions in the Bill. I cannot at this stage offer any hope that at a later stage in the passage of the Bill there will be any further Amendment.

Mr. Worsley: If it wishes to do so, will it be within the remit of the Stamp Committee to recommend that responsibility for licensing taxis in London should He with the G.L.C., instead of the Home Department?

Mr. Ennals: The Committee's terms of reference are very wide. It is asking for evidence from individual consumers. Some hon. Members may have read the letter in The Times inviting the public to give their views. The views of the G.L.C. and other representative bodies have also been asked for. If, in the light of these representations and considerations, the Stamp Committee were to make this recommendation, my right hon. Friend would give serious consideration to it.

Amendment agreed to.

Clause 4.

(PROHIBITION OF THE DISPLAY OF CERTAIN SIGNS OR NOTICES ON PRIVATE HIRE-CARS.)

Mr. Ennals: I beg to move Amendment No. 4, in page 2, line 39, leave out from beginning to ' "private' in line 13 on page 3 and insert:
(b) which consists of the words ' for hire', or the form or wording of which is in any other way such as to suggest that the vehicle on which it is displayed is presently available to take up any passenger wishing to hire it, or would be so available if not already hired.

(2) No advertisement—

(a) indicating that motor vehicles can be hired on application to a specified address or telephone number, being the address or telephone number of premises in the metropolitan police district or the City of London; or

(b) on or near any such premises indicating that motor vehicles can be hired at those premises.
shall include the word ' taxi' or ' cab', whether in the Singular or plural and whether alone or as part of another word, unless the vehicles offered for hire are licensed cabs or the advertisement makes it clear that they are not.

(3) Any person who—

(a) drives a vehicle in respect of which subsection (1) of this section is contravened or causes or permits that subsection to be contravened in respect of any vehicle; or
(b) subject to subsection (4) of this section, issues, or causes to be issued, an advertisement which contravenes subsection (2) of this section,
shall be guilty of an offence and liable on summary conviction, in the case of a first offence under the paragraph of this subsection in question, to a fine not exceeding £20 and, in the case of a second or subsequent offence under that paragraph, to a fine not exceeding £50.

(4) Where a person is charged with an offence under paragraph (b) of subsection (3) of this section, it shall be a defence to prove that he is a person whose business it is to publish or arrange for the publication of advertisements and that he received the advertisement in question for publication in the ordinary course of business and did not know and had no reason to suspect that its publication would amount to an offence under that paragraph.

(5) In this section—
' advertisement' includes every form of advertising, whether in a publication or by the display of notices or by means of circulars or other documents or by an exhibition of photographs or a cinematograph film, or by way of sound broadcasting or television, and references to the issue of an advertisement shall be construed accordingly;

I understand that it might be convenient if, with that Amendment, we take Amendments Nos. 5 and 6.

These three Amendments go together. The effect of the first Amendment is to extend the scope of the Clause in two quite separate ways, first, by generalising to some extent the restrictions on what may be displayed on vehicles, and, secondly, by imposing parallel restrictions on the use of certain words in advertisements.

Perhaps I might take first those parts of the Amendment which relate to what may be displayed on vehicles. It proposes to delete subsection (1,b) and subsection (2) which deal with the prohibitions on the use of variants on the word "hire", and to replace them with a new


Paragraph (b). This repeats the previous absolute prohibition on the display of the words "for hire" when Standing alone, and then proceeds to generalise the restrictions previously contained in subsection (1,b, ii) and subsection (2), so as to prohibit the display of any sign or notice,
 the form or wording of which is in any other way such as to suggest that the vehicle on which it is displayed is presently available to take up any passenger wishing to hire it, or would be so available if not already hired.
This meets the point made in Committee by my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Stoke Newington and Hackney, North (Mr. Weitzraan), who tabled an Amendment to the Clause.

The specific references to variants of the words "hire" or "hired" previously contained in paragraph (b,ii) have been dropped. I submit that they are superfluous now that the prohibition has been generalised so as to apply to any word which is misleading in the way set out in the latter part of the new paragraph (b). The Amendment does not meet the point covered by the second Amendment proposed by my hon. and learned Friend in Committee and I do not need to refer to that now.

8.0 p.m.

I move on to the part that deals with advertisements, which was a matter of considerable controversy in Committee. At the conclusion of our debate I said that I would reconsider the points made by hon. Members on both sides of the Committee. The Amendment extends Clause 4 so as to apply to advertisements, and provision is made for a new subsection (2,a) which makes it an offence for any advertisement which indicates that a motor vehicle may be hired on application to an address or telephone n amber in London—that is, the Metropolitan Police District and the City of London—to include the word "taxi" or "cab" or any combinations thereof with other words unless the vehicles to which the advertisement relates are licensed cabs or, if not, the advertisement makes it clear that they are not.

There is parallel provision under paragraph (a) for advertisements displayed on the premises where vehicles may be hired to be subject to the same restrictions, even if they do not include a London

address or telephone number, and this new restriction on advertising would affect the signs displayed in telephone boxes or in any other way, and therefore require that in such an advertisement it should be made clear whether or not the firm advertising was licensed as a hackney carriage operator.

The device of relating the prohibition only to advertisements carrying a London address or telephone number has been adopted to get around the difficulty to which I referred in answering the hon. Member when he originally proposed his Amendment, namely, that without some limitation of this kind the prohibition would affect provincial private hire car firms advertising locally. This would enlarge the scope of this part of the Bill in a quite unjustifiable way. The Bill deals with London problems, and it is neither desirable nor appropriate to extend its scope outside London, where we have no official knowledge that this problem even exists, although hon. Members have told us that many such problems do exist outside the London area. In any case, outside London local authorities who are responsible for the licensing of taxis already have wide powers to deal with this kind of problem in local legislation.

In the Amendment we have sought to define the word "advertisement". When the hon. Member moved his Amendment in Committee I referred to some of the difficulties that would arise without a definition. That is why we have sought to define the word. It is defined in the new subsection (5) as including
 every form of advertising, whether in a publication or by the display of notices or by means of circulars or other documents or by an exhibition of photographs or as cinematograph film, or by way of sound broadcasting or television …

It will not apply to the trade name of a firm written up over the firm's premises, because that is not an advertisement, but advertisements displayed on those premises and incorporating the name will be caught in the same way as they would be if displayed elsewhere. By the same token a bare entry in a telephone directory will not be caught, although advertisements appearing in the same directory will be. The Amendment is designed to apply to misleading advertisements. Neither a name written up over the business premises nor a bare telephone directory entry is properly an advertisement soliciting


custom, and it is only with the latter that the provisions is intended to be concerned.

The Amendment also deals with penalties, and the new subsection (3,a) repeats the relevant penalty provisions of the existing subsection (3) in relation to the offence of displaying a prohibited sign on a vehicle. Paragraph (b) makes Provision for the appropriate offence of issuing or causing to be issued an advertisement which contravenes the new subsection (2). The penalties will be the same for either offence.

The House, and especially those who were members of the Standing Committee, will probably agree that in this group of Amendments I have gone a long way, on behalf of the Government, to meet the arguments which were so cogently presented in Committee. It will be recalled that at the conclusion of our debate on an Amendment dealing in part with this subject I gave assurances to the Committee that I would look sincerely at the points that had been argued. I refuse to go as far as the hon. Member's Amendment, which would in my view have quite unfairly restricted the rights of private hire firms to advertise in fields in which they have every bit as much right to do their business as have taxi firms.

The proposal might have denied private hire car firms the use of titles and names which may have been theirs for years, and might have put a number of them out of business. This would have been very unfair, although I know that some people in the taxi trade would have been happy to put them out of business. This is not the purpose of the Bill.

We have attempted to strengthen still further the protection that we have given to taxi-cabs against private hire firms masquerading as taxi cab firms. Now they must make it clear in any advertisement that they are not licensed hackney carriages. This means that there is less likely to be a misunderstanding as to the conditions or obligations that have been undertaken by the private hire car firms, which are not licensed in the same way as are hackney carriages.

I submit that I have carried out to the full the assurances that I gave to my hon. Friend the Member for Ilkeston (Mr. Raymond Fletcher) in Committee after a long and constructive debate.

Mr. Woodnutt: In view of the Amendment, does the Minister consider that this restriction on advertising now brings these firms within the relevant sections of the Companies Acts, and that it would be illegal for a Company to include the word "cab" or "taxi" in its name if it did not operate licensed taxis, and would make it subject to Board of Trade disapproval?

Mr. Ennals: I would hesitate to give a definitive answer to that question, which is a matter for my right hon. Friend the President of the Board of Trade, but the Companies Acts deal with companies, and does not necessarily apply to all firms. Even though it might affect some it would not bite on all firms.

Mr. Worsley: The Government have come all the way to meet the substance of our Amendments in this case, and the Minister will find that he has a contented Opposition. Indeed, I venture to hope that the Government will follow our advice in other matters of greater moment. If they do they may find they will get on rather better. All I say in welcoming the Amendment is that it meets the substance of what we were arguing in Committee and it puts what we were trying to put much better than we could have put it.
It is different from the Situation in Committee, when the Minister was resisting us with all the powers at his command because, he said, the Stamp Committee was sitting, and if we moved the Amendment that we were then discussing that Committee would go home. I hope that he can assure us that the Committee has not gone home, but will continue its consideration of these important matters. On that amiable note I welcome the Amendment.

Mr. Ennals: I think that the hon. Member will recall that in Committee I said that the Stamp Committee might feel that it would be reasonable for it to go home if the Amendment proposed by the hon. Member and his hon. Friends were carried. I can assure him that even though he has welcomed the wisdom of the Government Amendments, the Amendment which we have discussed does not contain any of the serious dangers which were inherent in his Amendment, which I was strongly resisting. I think


that the Stamp Committee will feel well satisfied with the result of our deliberations.

Mr. English: This is an extraordinary Amendment. I am sorry to discover that this is a case of two Front Benches ganging up to do something which is quite ridiculous. This proposal is an attempt to delete the word "minicab" from the English language in London— [An HON. MEMBER: "Not at all."] Of course it is. What is being said here is simply that one must use no word eluding the word "taxi" or "cab". The official title of the vehicles which we call taxis—the term of art in law, I believe —is hackney carriages, but the original Act is so out-dated that no one uses it.
What is actually said is that none of these advertisements shall include "taxi" or "cab"
… whether in the singular or plural and whether alone or as part of another word, unless the vehicles offered for hire are licensed cabs or the advertisement makes it clear that they are not.
So one will be allowed only to use the word "minicab"—and this in London and nowhere else—provided only that one stipulates "minicab which is not a hackney carriage". Presumably, one should say, "taxi which is a hackney carriage". This is extraordinary—

Mr. Lubbock: If one put at the top of the advertisement, "Private car operators", that would be within the terms of the Amendment.

Mr. English: That would be, but the word "minicab" has now sunk into the English language. I suppose that Parliament can do anything, but this is an extraordinary attempt to delete a word which people commonly use. One will not now be able to refer in any advertisement simply to a "minicab", although every Citizen of London knows perfectly well that a minicab is not a taxi in the normally accepted meaning of the word. In other words, it is not a hackney carriage and a taxi is.
One will now be able to mention only "minicab, not being a hackney carriage". One will have to use a phrase instead of this common word. I do not know of another instance in which Parliament has tried to delete a word from the English language and replace it with a phrase,

and that only in one city. Therefore, the Amendment is ridiculous in this sense.
My hon. Friend the Under-Secretary made great play on a previous Amendment with the fact that he would consult the owners and drivers of taxi-cabs. Has he consulted the owners and drivers of private hire cars? Has he consulted the Board of Trade, in view of the fact that it is responsible for the Consumer Protection Bill, dealing with misleading advertisements generally and not, in particular, and on the principle that the advertisements should simply tell the truth and not use an incorrect phrase? Has he consulted the advertising interests?
Since he is so keen to consult the interests of the producers, has he consulted the Board of Trade and the advertisers—either through the Advertising Association or the Institute of Practitioners in Advertising—and have the owners and drivers of private hire vehicles been consulted? This is an extraordinary Clause, especially when Parliament is about to consider a Consumer Protection Bill, dealing with all misleading advertisements. To see this one Clause on this one industry in this one city relating to advertisements of only one sort and attempting to delete this word from the English language, is quite extraordinary.

8.15 p.m.

Mr. Lubbock: , I do not agree with the hon. Member for Nottingham West (Mr. English). I am in the unusual Situation for me of agreeing with the two Front Benches. The advertisement provisions in the Amendment are an improvement on the original. To eliminate the use of the words "cab" and "taxi" either by themselves or in any combination is a step towards ensuring that the public are not misled into thinking that these vehicles are something which they are not.
Whatever the hon. Gentleman may say about the use of the word "minicab" having become ingrained in the English language, it is an undesirable word, because it does not give a correct description of the vehicles. They are no longer small. Most are Ford Zephyrs, or similar vehicles, so the prefix "mini", at any rate, is misleading. The word "cab" is equally misleading, because it implies that these vehicles are likely to ply for


hire. Many of them have done so and it is only because it is so difficult to find evidence which will stand up in a court of law that there have not been many prosecutions of these people.
The first part of the Amendment, concerning the display of words on the vehicle, is not nearly so satisfactory. Although you, Mr. Deputy Speaker, have not been pleased to call the Amendment which I tabled, it might at least be possible to draw the Under-Secretary's attention to the alternative to his Suggestion. If one is trying to prevent private hire operators giving the public the misleading impression that their vehicles may be stopped on the street and taken as taxis to a destination, one must examine carefully any signs whatever.
The hon. Gentleman will be aware that these vehicles sometimes have illuminated signs displaying the company's name and telephone number above the roof, from which anybody might be entitled to assume that it could be stopped, like an ordinary taxi, and taken to his destination. The new wording of subsection (b) seems to mean that there would be nothing to prevent this hypothetical private hire firm from displaying not only its name and telephone number on this illuminated sign, but also other words which were calculated to mislead.
One or two examples occurred to me as I listened to the speech of the hon. Member for Nottingham, West. It would be perfectly in order for this hypothetical firm to carry on an illuminated roof sign such words or phrases as "minicar", "minitax", "taxy", or "taxee". Therefore, the wording of the Amendment does not go nearly far enough. What is the point of these illuminated display signs at all, if they are not meant to indicate that these vehicles may be hired on the street? It is obvious to me—I know this from my own experience and from the stories told me by taxi drivers—that a member of the public sees a vehicle, his attention is drawn by the illuminated sign and he hails it and takes it to his destination—a practice which, as the Under-Secretary knows, is highly illegal but extremely difficult to prove in practice.
Therefore, why have we not prohibited the display of all these signs and not just those which contain the offending

words "for hire" or anything suggesting that the vehicle can take up any passenger wishing to hire it?
This Clause will cause many difficulties in courts. The hon. Member for Nottingham, West is a lawyer —

Mr. English: I am not.

Mr. Lubbock: Well, he took a law degree, although he has never practised. Perhaps the hon. Gentleman can define a limit within which words might be said to indicate that a vehicle is available for hire. I would not care to say what words might give this impression and what might not.
The only words substantially concerned in the Clause are the words "for hire" and those which I have mentioned. "Taxi" or "cab" are not affected by the Amendment, because they are in subsection (1).

Sir Hugh Lucas-Tooth: I think that the hon. Gentleman is misreading the Clause with the Amendment. Subsection l(a) will remain in the Bill and will, therefore, effectively prohibit the use of the words "taxi" and "cab" from being displayed on any vehicle.

Mr. Lubbock: I said that we were not altering subsection 1(a) but were adding a new paragraph (b). I pointed out the sort of variations that would be perfectly legal to be displayed on illuminated signs, such as leaving the "i" off the end of "taxi"—I mentioned this on Second Reading—or by spelling "taxi" with a "y" or "ee". These variants would be legal and I want to know why the Minister will not adopt the simpler Solution which I have proposed. In other words, no signs should be displayed on private hire cars.
To adopt this Suggestion would not damage the business of hire car firms, because we are allowing them to advertise within sensible limits. If these signs are displayed, I fear that the public will be incited to halt these cars on roads and make their drivers commit the offence of plying for hire. I hope, therefore, that the Minister will give this matter further thought. It may be too late for him to amend the Bill at this stage, but I trust that it will be amended in another place. I hope that the Minister will see the wisdom of the advice I have given and alter the Bill accordingly.

Mr. John Ellis: I congratulate the Parliamentary Secretary on the expedition and skill he has shown in drafting these new provisions. We had an extremely robust debate on these matters in Committee upstairs and my hon. Friend has amply lived up to the assurances he gave on that occasion. He promised to look at the suggestions made to him in Committee, and he has certainly done so.
The hon. Member for Orpington (Mr. Lubbock) has made some interesting suggestions and has illustrated the difficulty of drafting provisions to cover all eventualities. I agree that such matters as illuminated signs and other variations make it difficult to legislate in this sphere. Certainly a great deal of difficulty might arise from the proposed new paragraph (b), which contains the words:
… which consists of the words ' for hire', or the form or wording of which is in any way such as to suggest that the vehicle … is presently available to take up any passenger wishing to hire it…".
The reference there to "the form of wording" makes one wonder whether that Provision would apply to, for example, numbers. Would it apply to signs? An illuminated coloured triangle inside the vehicle—perhaps on the windscreen— night denote that the vehicle was for hire. When we discussed this matter in Committee hon. Members pointed out the difficulties facing us in legislating for these eventualities.
The wording of the proposed new subsection (2,a) seems better, but I wonder whether "advertisement" covers numbers. Certainly, "advertisement" represents an endeavour to get something over to the public, and I therefore prefer its use, although when the subsection goes on to refer to an advertisement not
… indicating that motor vehicles can be h red on application to a specified address or telephone number, being the address or telephone number of premises in the metropolitan police district, or the City of London …".
I am not sure whether that refers to, say, a telephone kiosk where cards are displayed, the place where an advertisement is displayed or the vehicle itself. This may take into account the point which the hon. Member for Orpington has in mind about an advertisement being placed in a lighted dome on the roof of one of these vehicles.

Mr. Lubbock: The hon. Gentleman must read paragraph (a) with the words following at the end of subsection (2), that is:
 No advertisement…indicating that motor vehicles can be hired on application to a specified address or telephone number…shall include the word ' taxi' or ' cab '…".

Mr. Ellis: That intervention shows the sort of deep water in which we are swimming when legislating in this sphere. For this reason, I trust that the Minister will explain how wide he considers the Amendment goes.
My hon. Friend the Member for Ilkeston (Mr. Raymond Fletcher), who is unable to be here, would, I am sure, be pleased to have seen these Amendments being tabled. My hon. Friend has done a tremendous amount of work in this matter, in consultation with the Transport and General Workers' Union. Although we have asked the Minister a number of searching questions, I assure him that we appreciate the immense complexity of this subject, for not only is it necessary that we make the law; we must ensure that it can be enforced. While it is true that the legitimate car hire firm has a place, we must ensure that it obeys the law and that the law can be enforced.
If we were to consider every variant of every type of sign that could be used… with every type of symbol and advertisement that could be thought up…we might spend years on this one aspect of the subject. Indeed, I suppose that tyres could be painted in certain colours. The Minister has made a first-class attempt to try to solve this difficult problem.

Mr. Goodhart: I am sorry to find that, once again, I am in agreement with the hon. Member for Nottingham, West (Mr. English) and against almost every other hon. Member who has spoken so far. If I needed anything to convince me that the hon. Gentleman was right, it was not so much his speech—although I agreed with it—but the complexity of the Minister's remarks and of the Amendment. It seems that when we must go into these difficult verbal contortions in an attempt to provide a service to the public, we are really getting to the point of some lunacy.
I am not anxious to see taxi-drivers subjected to unfair competition, partly


because I have a large number of taxi-drivers in my constituency—although, alas, few hackney cabs are plying for hire in my area—and partly because, if they are subject to unfair competition and the number of hackney cabs goes down, the public as a whole will suffer.
On the other hand, when people are trying to provide a service to the public— as I think everyone has acknowledged the private hire car firms attempt—it cannot be right, in order to redress the balance for the cab drivers, to make the private car hire people offer their Services, as it were, in secrecy. There must be a better way of protecting the competitiveness of the cab drivers than to lay down that it is perfectly legal for a car hire firm to insert a small card in a telephone kiosk—and so often the telephones in the kiosks do not work that one has little reason to go into them to look for the cards—but not to have a card displayed on the windscreen of the car.

8.30 p.m.

Mr. English: I thank the hon. Member for his support, but is he aware that other local authorities get round the whole difficulty by taking the same powers over private hire vehicles that they have over taxis?

Mr. Goodhart: That would be a legitimate and sensible way of redressing the balance between the cab owners and the private hire companies. Let there be rather fewer restrictions on cab drivers than there are at present on private car hire operators, but let us not try to redress the balance by making secret the service offered by the private hire car people. I am against the idea put forward by the hon. Member for Orpington (Mr. Lubbock), that these people should not be allowed to have on their cards the telephone numbers of their firms. Such cards are a perfectly legitimate means of letting strangers to the area—who, perhaps, are those most in need of these hire cars—have some idea of how to get in touch with the firms. To adopt the hon. Gentleman's idea would mean that the public as a whole would suffer, while the cab drivers themselves would derive no benefit.

Mr. Lubbock: Is the hon. Gentleman aware that private hire car operators can still leave cards in telephone kiosks, and

can advertise in any other manner they choose, as long as they do not use the word "taxi" or "cab", whether in the singular or the plural, or whether "owners" is another part of the word? Within those limitations they are still absolutely free to put advertisements in the newspapers or cards in kiosks.

Mr. Goodhart: That makes it even sillier.

8.33 p.m.

Mr. Arnold Shaw: One of the Committee's main debates on Clause 4 was whether plying for hire or advertising, as it were, from base, was the more important issue. Plying for hire is already illegal. I know that the law is not observed in every case, but that is a matter for the police. The present object is to make the Situation as between the car hire operator and the taxicab operator fairer than it is now. Although the Amendment might have gone further in certain ways, I am sure that it goes a long way to meet the requirements of the trade.
The Stamp Committee has to some extent been derided, but that Committee is examining the whole issue in a much wider way altogether and will report later. In the meantime, although the Bill seemed to be introduced as a sort of mild interim Measure, it now has a merit of its own. I am convinced that as an interim Measure, it will be heartily welcomed by the taxicab trade.

Sir H. Lucas-Tooth: I represent a number of owners and drivers in the taxi trade in my constituency and on their behalf I would like to say how grateful they will be to the Government for the Amendment. It is necessary to give the licensed taxi trade a measure of protection. I appreciate what the Under-Secretary has said—that this is not a Bill to deal with the whole problem in this connection—but it is right, proper and fair at this moment to include a provision which gives the licensed taxi trade what is intended to be the monopoly use of the words "taxi" and "cab".
Whatever the hon. Member for Nottingham, West (Mr. English) may say, that does not worry me in the slightest. The public know perfectly well what a taxi or cab is. They know that it is a licensed taxi or cab. If people are misusing those words, they should not be


allowed to do so to the detriment of other people's legitimate interest.
To give an example of the sort of thing which has happened, I came across a case a year or so ago of a firm which made it its business to get a list of names of owners of private cars who used their vehicles for their business and for recreation and other purposes. The intention was that they should earn money in their spare time by bringing the cars into the organisation and collecting money by operating simply as taxis and nothing else.
Clearly, if the Cream of the trade is to be taken off in that way, it is grossly unfair on those who have to pay substantial sums of money for the purpose of buying and keeping taxis which have to comply with the limits of the licence and, even more particularly, to those who drive taxis and who have to spend anything up to a year learning their trade before they can earn any money. Therefore, it is perfectly reasonable to give this special privilege to those who are licensed. The Amendment does not in any way go beyond what is necessary. It does not seem to me that it can do any damage to the legitimate hire-car trade. For that reason, I welcome it and I thank the Government.

Amendment agreed to.

Title.

Amendments made: No. 5, in line 7, leave out ' and '.

No. 6, in line 9, leave out
' or certain other speeified words'
and insert
' and signs or notices of certain other descriptions; and to restrict the issue, in connection with certain vehicles, of advertisements containing either of those words.'.—[Mr. Ennals.]

Motion made, and Question, That the Hill be now read the Third time, put forthwith pursuant to Standing Order No. 55 (Third Reading) and agreed to.

Bill accordingly, read the Third time. and passed.

SEWERAGE (SCOTLAND) BILL

Order for Second Reading read.

Bill referred to the Scottish Grand Committee.—[Dr. Dickson Mahon.]

SCOTLAND (SALE OF COUNCIL HOUSES)

Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.—[Mr. Grey.]

8.39 p.m.

Mr. Gordon Campbell (Moray and Nairn): I wish to raise tonight the question of the sale of Council houses in Scotland. As you will know, Mr. Deputy Speaker, I have been applying since October for this debate and I am glad that I have at last been successful in the Ballot. It gives me an opportunity before the Recess to persuade the Secretary of State for Scotland to change an attitude which he seems to have adopted only since February this year. Cases have have arisen in my constituency to which I will refer later. No doubt similar cases have arisen and are arising elsewhere in Scotland.
As I understand the position in Scotland, the Secretary of State's approval is required before a local authority can sell a house which has been let for general needs purposes. If this is not the position, no doubt the Minister of State will tell us. I recognise that this Government could not be expected to give their approval to mass sales of Council houses. They have made it clear that it is their party policy to oppose such sales of houses in very large numbers. I entirely understand the Government taking a negative view and rejecting any proposals of that kind in Scotland.
What I want to find out from the Government tonight is whether they are opposed to any sale of a Council house now in a place where there is a housing list with applicants waiting for Council houses. I had hoped that the Government would be prepared to consider the circumstances of individual cases and decide whether to give permission. It appears that the Government have changed their policy since earlier this year.
Up till February of this year the Secretary of State has given his approval to the selling of Council houses in my constituency and in the particular burgh whose cases I will mention shortly. The last case was as recent as last February. I claim that there are situations in which the sale of a house can be of advantage


to both the Council and the tenant and can, at the same time, help the local housing Situation and, therefore, be an advantage to those who are on the waiting list. Applicants on the waiting list can gain rather than lose from such a transaction.
Such a house cannot be available for reletting, unless the Council evicts the sitting tenant. Money from the sale can contribute towards new housing. The Council is relieved, in the case of older houses, of maintenance and repair, which can amount to a considerable sum. In the cases which I am considering, I would expect the sale price to be an economic price. I am not dealing with any case where a house is being given away at a nominal price. I am concerned with cases where an economic price is being asked.
A house is also a home. If a family has lived in it for 20 years or so, will a Council evict the family, for example if a wife is widowed and the children have grown up and departed? In almost every case, a Council will not evict in those circumstances. The House knows many other examples where families have been good tenants and paid their rates well and, either because their children have grown up or because of misfortune, the person occupying the house, or the couple, may be over-housed.
Sometimes the Council suggests that they move to a smaller house, and this is happily carried out. That still hardly affects the position of the stock of houses as a whole. They are still in a Council house, and Councils are understandably reluctant to evict such people from Council houses because, as I have said, the house is a home, especially when the family have lived in it for so long.
I come now to the cases in my constituency. I wish to make clear at the outset that politics, as I think the Minister knows, do not arise in my constituency on this matter at all. There are no political labels attached to local government in Moray and Nairn. The candidates stand as individuals and, when they are councillors in Council, the Councils themselves have no politics and there are no majorities or minorities.
The cases to which I refer tonight have arisen in the Burgh of Lossiemouth, but a principle is involved which could

apply, and may be applying, anywhere else in Scotland. Fifteen years ago, the town Council of Lossiemouth earmarked 32 old houses for sale, houses which had all been built before 1930. During the fifteen years, 22 of those houses have been sold, the sale of the last one having been authorised by the Secretary of State, as I said, in February last. Since then, however, the Secretary of State has refused approval for the sale of three more, and this apparent change is now preventing the Council from carrying out its policy in regard to those older houses.
The Council has not changed its policy. Its policy has been perfectly clear, and the Council has been pursuing it as appropriate moments came for the sale of these houses. It has restricted its offers of sale for these houses to its tenants or to people on the housing waiting list; it has not made the houses available to other persons.
The position of the tenants is of concern to me also because tenants can be adversely affected by the Secretary of State's attitude. In one of the houses a widow has lived for more than 30 years. She was willing to buy the house, which, incidentally, is only two doors away from the one in respect of which the Secretary of State gave approval last February. Her house is not available for letting to any applicant on the housing list, and the Council would not, surely, evict her in the circumstances.
On 14th December a year ago, in answer to a Question, the Secretary of State stated that he would give his consent in future only in very special cases, but it seems now that he is withholding his consent in cases for which it would previously have been expected. Perhaps the Minister of State can tell us more about it, but that is how I understand the position.
Lossiemouth town Council is operating the policy which it thought best for the whole Community it serves. The ratepayers, tenants and applicants on the housing list are all likely to benefit from the sale of these houses in appropriate circumstances. The Council is pressing on with its own building programme which will make the main contribution to meeting the housing needs of die burgh.
Anomalies arise from a Situation of this kind. One is that, without having to


seek the Secretary of State's permission, the town council is able to sell some newly-built houses, houses built only within the last year or two and which have never been occupied. It has done this as pert of a road widening scheme. Because these houses have never been let, the Secretary of State's approval for their sale is not required. So we have a Situation in which, while the Council can sell new empty houses and advertise them for sale without any trouble, the Secretary of State is stopping the sale of old houses to the sitting tenants, the present occupants. This must be an anomaly.
The second anomaly to which I draw attention is what is happening in England and especially in Birmingham. According to newspaper reports, Birmingham is selling Council houses at the rate of about 50 a month, but the Minister of Housing in England and Wales is not intervening. In The Times of 14th November, the Minister of Housing was reported as saying that he did not think that the situation required him to step in or use his powers. In Scotland we have the Secretary of State apparently being dictatorial in a field entirely within Scottish administration, nothing to do with Whitehall, or the Treasury, or anything like that, while the equivalent Minister in England is not intervening in the sale of Council houses on a considerably larger scale.
I understand that the position in England is that a general consent was given some time ago by the Minister of Housing in a circular to local authorities, so that at present they do not need to apply to the Minister in each case, but of course, the Minister could rescind that and take back powers if he wished and alter the Situation so that he could intervene as the Secretary of State is doing in Scotland.
I recognise that the Secretary of State may wish to impose conditions on a sale and that is perfectly reasonable. I have mentioned the purchase price. I accept at once that when the Secretary of State has given his approval to the sale of Council houses he will wish to satisfy him-self that the price is sensible and economic. Where there is a housing shortage it would be perfectly reasonable for him to insist that the Council should retain rights over the house for a period of years, say, five years. This would ensure that there could be no question of abuse, such

as quick resale at a profit by the person who had bought the house, or some curious anomaly arising as a result of a sudden and unforeseen death of the tenant.
If the Secretary of State wished to make such conditions which were not automatically in the proposals which Councils were putting to him, I would say that those were reasonable conditions which most Councils would be prepared to consider and probably accept. But there may be other conditions about which the Minister of State might tell us and which the Government might wish to include in any arrangement for the sale of individual Council houses in this way. Those, too, I would have thought would be reasonable and could be included.
The Chief way to meet the housing shortage, as has been said on both sides of the House many times, is by building. Instead of waiting for a tenant to die or leave, surely it is better, if the circum-stances are right and the tenant is willing, to obtain the money from the sale of a house and use it to increase the building Programme. This is especially true at a time of financial stringency, such as the present, when, as we have heard again only today from the Prime Minister, Government expenditure is to be further restricted and when the public is being encouraged to save. Councils should not be forbidden from selling Council houses, but at the same time they should not be compelled to sell them. This is a subject in which reasonable discretion should be given to local authorities to do what they consider to be best.
The tenants in the cases that I have looked into are upset by the Government's decision and the change of policy. In addition, Lossiemouth Town Council, which has no political colour, feels that its views are either not fully understood by the Government are not properly considered. I understand that it is seeking further discussions with the Government, and I hope that a Minister at the Scottish Office will arrange that they take place.
In the case of Lossiemouth, there is no question of mass sales of Council houses. It is a straightforward matter of administration and examining the pros and cons of particular transactions for all concerned. Consent should not be withheld from a proposal by a Council unless the


Government proves to it that there is a valid objection, and that has not been done in the cases I have mentioned, especially as the Government previously gave their approval to similar sales up to February.
The refusals in these cases, where there seemed to be advantages to all concerned, make one wonder whether in any Situation where the Secretary of State's approval is required such consent will now be given. The impression has been created that the Government will not now approve of any such proposals. The Minister of State indicates dissent. I am glad, but that is certainly the impression. I hope that the Minister will say tonight that the Government will reconsider the Position. There could possibly have been misunderstanding at St. Andrew's House about the council's purposes and plans, but I understand that all the relevant facts and information about the proposed sales have been provided by it.
As he indicated dissent when I said that the impression had been created that there was now a general prohibition on such sales, will the Minister tell us tonight the circumstances in which a sale would be authorised? I hope that he can give us examples of cases where the circumstances would be right in the Government's view for a sale to be authorised. That would greatly help Councils like Lossiemouth with such proposals and plans.
The refusals in those cases have raised doubts and considerable anxiety amongst tenants, besides giving the Council a more difficult task in its housing programme. On behalf of my constituents who are tenants, ratepayers, councillors, and applicants on the housing list, I ask the Scottish Office Ministers to reconsider carefully these cases and the policy decision which seems to have been taken about a year ago.
The Minister accepted an Amendment which I moved a short time ago to a Scottish Bill, having changed his mind between the Committee stage and our consideration of it tonight. I hope that similarly he will be prepared to reconsider this question. In any case, I hope that the Secretary of State will keep an open mind and will still be ready to listen fully to the details of particular cases, where proposals are put forward for the

sale of Council houses, and to the arguments in favour of such sales.

9.0 p.m.

Mr. William Small: I listened to the hon. Member for Moray and Nairn (Mr. G. Campbell) with scepticism. He is a prominent spokesman of the Tory Party on broader horizons and into this narrow subject of the sale of Council houses in Lossiemouth he managed to bring Birmingham, over the Border. There may be discretionary features among local authorities, but the generality of his speech surprised me.
The hon. Gentleman's case is that he wants the houses sold at an economic price. But an economic price is arrived at on scarcity value as between a willing seller and a willing buyer. Of course, to satisfy the general public, he should have added the philosophy of admission of the Press to the sale as well. Is the sale to be by auction? After all, this is public property subsidised by public money. Is it to be a private contract between a sitting tenant and the Council at an agreed price? If so, one does not get the economic price. Nor is there access by the Press, and local authority accounts are shown in the generality in such cases.

Mr. G. Campbell: I do not know whether the hon. Gentleman was here— [HON. MEMBERS: "He was."] Then he has misunderstood what I said. I mentioned Birmingham simply to show the anomaly that one Minister in the Government is not intervening there, where a considerable number of sales are taking place, whereas, in Scotland, another Minister who has been authorising sales stopped authorising them only a few months ago.

Mr. Small: I probably misinterpreted the hon. Gentleman. But I am sure that he was giving general support to the sale of Council houses as policy. He referred to Lossiemouth Council as being nonpolitical, but to me that means that it is a non-Labour Council. However, we need not go into semantics. The argument is about who is to represent the tenant.
The Situation is that the hon. Gentleman is advocating a policy for the Tory Party. Does he carry his party with him? If that is his standing in the Tory Party, I am surprised at the lack of support for


him on the benches opposite. One assumes always that, when a Front Bench spokesman for any party speaks in the House, he has the support of his back benches. It is one of the weaknesses of his argument that he apparently has no back-bench support.
The hon. Gentleman referred to restricted sales. On what principle would this be applied? Would they be sales of casual vacancies? Or would it be the nomination of the tenant that his house should not go back into the pool? How would one arrive at the decision? Would it be by the desire of the tenant to buy the house? The hon. Gentleman has not satisfied us about the criteria on which to make this a policy.
If it were to be by private contract between a sitting tenant and the local authority, it would become a dangerous line to follow. It would be dangerous to those on the housing list, who would see their opportunities for housing being usurped. I have never felt that housing was a social Service. I have always argued that it is a public Service available to those who need it, and to reduce the pool of houses available is a dangerous road to travel in the light of the requirements of the Community at the moment.
Nor did the hon. Gentleman indicate whether the houses he has in mind would be older houses or new stock. In any case, such a policy would not guarantee security of tenure for the rest of the family involved. There is security of tenure at the moment. When a tenant dies the house goes to the oldest unmarried member of the family.
That is the general run and rule of local authority administration. It goes to the eldest unmarried member of the tenant's family, who is protected by the local authority. What is the nature of the succession? Does it go back for sale, orfor redistribution for economic reasons? The hon. Member must recognize—indeed, he said—that a house, be it a Council house or not, becomes a home, and so security of tenure to a family is very important indeed. Under the law of succession at present operating under municipal administration, it is the eldest unmarried member of the tenant's family who generally gets the gift of the tenancy. There will not be the same protection if

houses are brought within the category of sale and private contract.
I hope that the Minister will resist the introduction of that into local authority administration of housing in Scotland.

9.6 p.m.

Mr. John Robertson: I have the same difficulty as my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow, Scotstoun (Mr. Small) in knowing just exactly what the case was which the hon. Member for Moray and Nairn (Mr. G. Campbell) was making. If he had confined himself to Lossiemouth we would have been in some difficulty in speaking in this Adjournment debate at all, but, of his own choosing, he sought to extend the argument beyond Lossiemouth and to the rest of the country, as a general principle affecting all Scottish local authorities.
I felt, too, that the hon. Member might have helped the House a great deal if he had told us something about the Lossiemouth housing list, the number of houses Lossiemouth has built and the number of people who want houses to let. That would have assisted the House in knowing whether or not he had a good argument.

Mr. G. Campbell: I could have made an exceedingly long speech on this subject, but I can certainly supply that information. The number of people on the housing list was 170 the last time I heard.

Mr. Robertson: That tells us one side of the problem—how many houses are to let in Lossiemouth.
I remember one hon. Gentleman on that side of the House, when he was sitting on this, the Government, side arguing very eloquently and with a great deal of force that what we needed in Scotland was houses to let. We remember how hon. and right hon. Members opposite would solve the housing problem in 1961, how they solved it again in 1962, how they solved it again in 1963! The housing lists have never disappeared—even when they told us the Problem was solved. I remember one of the hon. Gentleman's hon. Friends speaking from the Government Front Bench saying that in Paisley the housing problem was solved. Afterwards, he changed his mind and said it was in Hamilton. In fact, the only place where


they solved the problem was in their own minds. They wanted to get rid of it. Then they came with a Bill to encourage people to build houses for renting because, they said, that was where the lack was.
Does the hon. Gentleman not realise that, if he sells off the older Council houses, then, in order to meet the rating bill, he will have to increase the rents of the houses that are left? Does he not remember himself arguing that the only way we could count the subsidy being paid for houses was to take the whole stock of houses—to take the pre-war houses as well as the post-war houses, put them all together, in order to calculate an adequate subsidy?
If a local authority sells off all its pre-war houses and has only post-war houses left, it will have to fix rents on them which people cannot afford to pay or the cost will have to be borne on the rates. The economic rent of a pre-war house will never meet the cost of building a new Council house today. What could be expected from a pre-war house? Many such houses would be over-priced at £2,500, whereas it costs between £3,000 and £4,000 to build a new house. The problem cannot be solved by selling existing Council houses. We have argued this one out often in the past, and I am surprised that the hon. Gentleman should attempt to raise it again now.
The hon. Gentleman has not really studied the problem. What is needed in Scotland more than anything today is houses to let, even in Hamilton and Paisley. The number of people who come asking for my help to get a house to rent is fantastic. It is one of my major tasks in my surgery, and I know that my hon. Friends all find the same problem. I suggest that it is the major housing problem in Lossiemouth, too. If people can afford to buy up-to-date Council houses at economic prices, I suggest that they can get private enterprise builders to build similar houses for the same money.
I agree that a problem arises here in that it is more expensive to build a house in Scotland than it is in the South-East of England. The most expensive house in Britain is the private enterprise-built house in Scotland. It is a problem which

we have tried to tackle over the years, and I agree that it is difficult. Nevertheless, when one considers the economic price of an up-to-date Council house, anyone who can afford to buy that kind of house can afford to buy a house built by a private enterprise builder. That is the way to increase the housing—not selling off Stocks of houses for rent. The only thing achieved by doing that is to remove the hope of people on the housing list of getting a decent house in which to live.
I agree that Glasgow has a terrible housing problem, but the worst houses in Scotland are not in Glasgow. They can be found in the little towns and villages in the countryside. These small burghs, particularly in the rural areas, need to get down to the job of building decent houses for their populations. That is the first priority, and it is that with which the hon. Member for Moray and Nairn should be concerning himself.
I do not know whether there has been a new policy from the Scottish Office about restricting the sale of houses. I have never heard complaints from the two Councils with which I am familiar, that of the area in which I live and that of the area which I represent. Their complaint is that they cannot get enough money to build houses to let.
The hon. Gentleman should read his own speeches made in the Scottish Grand Committee three years ago. Perhaps, then, he might convience himself that he was right then and is wrong this time.

Mr. G. Campbell: The hon. Gentleman is probably thinking of the speeches of other hon. Members. When I was Under-Secretary, I was dealing with this Situation on very few occasions. I spoke from the Front Bench during the Committee stage of a United Kingdom Housing Bill, but not in the Scottish Grand Committee.

Mr. Robertson: On the occasion to which I have referred, the hon. Gentleman was not speaking from the Front Bench. He was speaking from the back benches in support of his Front Bench. If he cares to exercise his mind, I am sure that he will remember the occasion.

9.15 p.m.

Mr. Hugh D. Brown (Glasgow, Provan): There is something of an anti-climax about the atmosphere in the House this evening. This is understandable. For the life of me I cannot see how I can possibly relate the sale of Council houses to arms for South Africa or some of the economic problems that night be facing us. Nevertheless, we are indebted to the hon. Member for Moray and Nairn (Mr. G. Campbell) for raising this subject. It is too bad that the Minister of State will have to reply to a few points which perhaps he did not anticipate. But life has to go on, despite arms for South Africa.
I want to express a point of view, which I think is shared by most hon. Members from Glasgow, on the sale of Council houses. There is something in the argument about the selling of Council houses. We cannot afford to take a doctrinaire attitude and say that under no circumstances could we justify the sale of Council houses. The hon. Member for Moray and Nairn is probably quite reasonable in his attitude to this problem, considering that he is referring to a small burgh which does not, as far as I know, have any major problems of any kind. However, when one comes to the big cities and the larger towns in Scotland the sale of Council houses becomes a different proposition, and it certainly becomes a political issue.
I am not against owner-occupation, and this is basically what the argument is about. In some way it is to encourage the expansion of owner-occupation. It presumes that someone who buys a house acquires virtues and attitudes towards the property which he did not possess when it was a Council house. Either that, or he must be getting a bargain. If he is getting a bargain, it must presumably be at public expense. There-fore, I cannot see the contribution that it makes to solving the housing problem, and to the extent that it might encourage discussion in the House and elsewhere and tend to make it a major political issue, that would be unfortunate.
What would happen if an authority like Glasgow decided that it would be wise to sell Council houses? It has not even got the land to indulge in co-operative housing associations or to give private enterprise the opportunity of

building for sale inside the city. Inevitably, if there were a sale of Council houses, one would be driven into two positions. The first would be to indulge in some kind of priority System, in the sense of giving priority to categories such as teachers or policemen. There is a good case for that. But the second would be that one would be dictated to by the group for which a case could be made out for allowing it to buy houses. It would dictate where it wanted to buy houses. In other words, it completely alters the whole attitude to housing of one establishes priority categories and on top of that gives them some greater advantage in where the house they want to buy might be.
It is a lot of old rubbish to talk about the rights of the sitting tenant who might want to buy a house. There is security of tenure. There is not a local authority in the country, to my knowledge, which has ever acted in any spirit of vindictiveness and evicted any successor to someone who had lived in the house for years. Therefore, I do not see any force in this argument.
I must admit that I am concerned about the financial arguments that always bother us in housing. I have discovered, since coming here, that if one dare suggest that certain areas have peculiar Problems one is accused of being parochial. But it is true that the Scottish Office is not facing up to the social inequalities that arise from the shortage of land in Scotland. I think that this is the biggest Charge.
In Glasgow, we have been confronted with the problem of out-county estates, with a burden on the exporting Community. It is not our fault that there is overcrowding in Glasgow. I am deeply disappointed and disturbed at the attitude of the Scottish Office in not being able to break away from the concept that it is always the fault of the city, or the town— and this can apply to Paisley or to any other large burgh which is reaching the stage of needing to export people—that it has too many people in houses which should have been condemned long ago. The greater the financial burden that is placed on exporting authorities, the greater will be the pressure from Tories and all sorts of independents to encourage the sale of Council houses to relieve the financial burden.
I would like the Minister to look seriously at where we are going in Scotland. We are going to create large areas which will be deprived of the so-called benefits of a mixed Community. The Scottish Office allows the sale of houses in new towns. Why does it not allow the sale of houses in other areas? If there are special problems, why not admit them? Why should not we be more selective, and, instead of concentrating so much on the total number of houses being built in Scotland—I know that we must have some regard for this—think more in terms of where we are building, and the kind of houses that we are building?
We should look, not just at the problems of Lossiemouth, but at the whole structure of housing finance in Scotland. We need to look at the rents of controlled properties. We need to look at the whole rent structure in Scotland. We should not tinker with financial inducements to try to get private enterprise to do a job which I am certain it will not do, or will be unwilling to do. If we are to have bold and imaginative government, we must grasp some of the nettles in housing finance, and not always follow the hon. Gentlemen opposite, even though this may mean saying to burghs like Lossiemouth, "You will not get an allocation of money for housing finance unless you can prove there is a need".

Mr. G. Campbell: The hon. Gentleman knows Lossiemouth, and his father-in-law, who was a Member here, knew it well. The hon. Gentleman is entirely in agreement with me—I do not know whether he was here at the beginning of my speech —when he says that Councils do not evict the proper successors of tenants. For this reason, the sale of a house does not take away a house from someone on the housing list. My other point is that a number of houses involved in Lossiemouth, now 10, is only H per cent. of the total. There is no question of the mass sale of Council houses. It is just a small number.

Mr. Brown: I do not propose to follow the hon. Gentleman into the detailed Problems of Lossiemouth, but it is obvious that it does not have a housing problem of any significance in the sense of housing need in the Community. This is the only point that I was making.
I have a great regard for the Minister's industry and energy in going round the country, but I have come to the conclusion that we cannot please everybody all the time. Not even my hon. Friend can do that. Therefore, if we are to get this imaginative break-through, we must tackle the land question. The amount of land available around Glasgow is almost a scandal. In Milngavie there are two estates under private ownership. They are not even being cultivated. They are not being put to any useful purpose whatsoever. I can find nothing in our three years of Government to show that we are going to be tough with landowners who are holding land. We do not want to use all of it for housing, but certainly far too much of it is being secured by auction by private enterprise. If we had a little more action in this regard, we would get much more support our our policies in the country.

9.25 p.m.

Mr. Alex Eadie: I do not want to develop the arguments put forward by some of my hon. Friends. I was in some difficulty in listening to the hon. Member for Moray and Nairn (Mr. G. Campbell), who ranged from the specific to the general. If he had rested his case on the specific some of us would have been hard put to cross swords with him, but he went on to talk in general terms. He may have talked with some authority about Lossiemouth, but I question which he can talk with the same authority about the general Situation, because week in and week out, my mail is full of letters from people who need houses and should have them.
The sale of Council houses would in no way solve their problem. To talk of the sale of Council houses as if it offered a part-way Solution to the housing problem is wrong. The hon. Member should have another look at the problem. I received a letter today from a constituent who will be evicted this month because the factory where he has been working has closed down and the owners want the house in which he is living. It is a tied house, and two or three people are involved.
We must deal with need. Hon. Members opposite, when talking about housing, become obsessed with finance, believing that if we can solve some of the financial problems we can wave a magic wand and solve the housing problem. It is not a


question of finance; it is a question of need. The individual is entitled to a house because he needs a house; it does not depend on whether he can afford to buy a house—a Council house or a privately-built house.
For many years I was chairman of a county housing committee, and during that time I worked with two or three medical officers for the county. They had no politics, but without exception they argued that housing was an investment for the well-being of the Community, and that industry and the Community always got a sound return from the provision of houses for rent. The question of houses to buy did not enter into the matter, because the vast majority of the people could never afford to buy a house.
In many areas we have seen the well-being of a Community uplifted by the Provision of proper housing. We have always argued about the provision of new schools being a sound investment and a necessary capital investment, for better education, yet in the very areas where those schools have been built the housing is a real disgrace to the Community. Some of the best days of my life as a housing convenor were spent ordering the bulldozing of miners' rows and the building in their place of proper housing, an investment which showed a return for the Community and industry.
The hon. Member for Moray and Nairn may not have done the Lossiemouth local authority a disservice tonight, but he may have done a disservice to Scottish local authorities generally when he spoke about such cases as an old lady living in a house which was too big for her. He must know that most local authorities operate a voluntary decanting system which works very well. The hon. Gentleman came near advocating a compulsory system—

Mr. G. Campbell: Perhaps the hon. Gentleman did not hear what I said— that, in that Situation, local authorities normally try to move a person to a smaller house. But I pointed out that this does not make a house available to someone on the housing list. A person would simply move from a larger to a smaller house.

Mr. Eadie: I accept what the hon. Gentleman says, but the logic of his argument was close to advocating a com-

pulsory decanting system. I have crossed swords in the Grand Committee with the hon. Member for Glasgow, Cathcart (Mr. Edward M. Taylor), who also came close to advocating a compulsory policy.
It would be a sad day for Scotland if we gave any hint of encouragement to local authorities for such a system, because the social consequences would be tremendous. I agree that local authorities try to solve this problem with compassion and understanding. This relates not only to Council houses. Sometimes, a house or land has to be acquired because development is being held back. If an aged couple live there and alternative accommodation cannot be provided, it is common for most local authorities, even at gross inconvenience, to grant them a life undertaking.
The hon. Member has not advanced his case for the mass sale of Council houses. I do not know the position in Lossiemouth; his case may have been stronger if he had dealt with the specific rather than the general.

Mr. G. Campbell: Everything I said this evening was prefaced by the remark that I was not raising tonight the question of the mass sale of Council houses, but the particular questions which had arisen of the sale of individual houses. I said (hat I accepted that this Government would be opposed to mass sales and I therefore did not raise that question.

Mr. Eadie: The hon. Gentleman's speech ranged very wide, and if there was any doubt about my point, some of my hon. Friends have tried to make precisely the same point. The hon. Gentleman may have intended to deal with specific instances, but I suggest that he reads the report of his speech tomorrow, when he will discover that, in ranging so far, he gave the impression, at least to those on this side, that he was talking generally about the sale of Council houses.

9.35 p.m.

Mr. Gregor Mackenzie: The House will be grateful to the hon. Member for Moray and Nairn (Mr. G. Campbell) for initiating this debate. Although he has initiated it in the rather limited sense of Lossiemouth, as the principal Opposition spokesman on housing, we must take his speech seriously and consider it carefully, although I wonder whether he is flying something of a kite.
The problem of the sale of houses has interested me for a long time. My first entry into representative Office occurred as the result of the Labour landslide in Glasgow in 1952, on this very issue. The electors of that city—and most people in the West of Scotland were in agreement with them—considered that Council houses should not be sold, and at that time the Labour Party in Glasgow secured one of its biggest majorities.
The interesting point about that election campaign was the dishonesty of the Conservative spokesmen. The Conservative Party had for a long time taken a strong stand—and the same applies today—on rents. It has always advocated that there should be economic, realistic—or what other form of words one chooses to call them—rents. But when an opportunity presented itself for the Conservative Party, in the biggest of all local authorities in Scotland, to do something about it, it shirked the issue by trying to persuade the electors there that to solve the problem by that means would really not solve it in the long run. The result was that the Conservative Party was unable to persuade the electors that all the social difficulties of the area would be solved by selling Council houses.
I do not wish to delay the House. I have only four questions to ask. The first is whether or not this is the best way to solve the admitted difficulty of financing the building of more houses by local authorities. The second is to discover whether there is a shortage of houses for sale. The third is to know whether or not there is a demand from occupiers to buy the houses in which they live. The fourth, and most important, is the effect that such a Solution would have on the thousands of people in Scotland who are waiting for Council houses.
When considering the question of Council house finance, there seems to be an unseemly interest sometimes in the whole subject. Although we are basically interested in it, some people seem to think that this is the be all and end all of local authority affairs; that local authorities must provide this one Service and do nothing else. They are not always aware that, to build more houses, local authorities must be concerned with providing the labour and obtaining the materials and resources.
My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State has said that if local authorities feel that they have a problem, then, it being a local problem, it is up to them to do what they think is necessary; that if they wish to introduce a realistic rent structure, local democracy being what it is, they have the right to do that. In other words, it is up to them to determine these matters for themselves.
It is our Obligation, as the representatives of the people, to persuade the Government about our housing difficulties. Recent legislation has been of considerable value to local authorities which find difficulty in financing their housebuilding programmes because of the cost of land, the increased cost of multistorey building and problems associated with modern house development, particularly when they are faced with a great deal of slum clearance, as is the case in West of Scotland constituencies.
At the heart of this matter is the question whether or not there is a shortage of houses for sale. The hon. Member for Moray and Nairn is aware that, in the past, I have pointed out that it is right and proper that people who aspire to own their own homes should be able to do so. This is, of course, a matter of personal choice. Many people put it as their first priority. Indeed, many make it their one ambition and are prepared to go without many things so as to own their own homes. I own my own home. That was one of my ambitions and it is now achieved, at least partly.
I used to look at the Glasgow Herald with great regularity. On several days of the week there were long columns of all the houses available in Glasgow, in Rutherglen—all over Scotland—for those wanting to buy their own houses. A great range was offered, from "Single ends", as we call them, right up to houses with 10, 11 or 12 rooms and kitchen. There is, therefore, no shortage of houses for those who want to buy them.
When we were returned in 1964 many people greatly feared that we would put a stop to the building of private houses. I now ask my hon. Friend the Minister of State whether that is the case. If my memory serves me aright, in October of this year 600 houses were completed for sale in Scotland, and about 9,600 houses for sale were under construction by private agencies. That seems to be in


excess of the private housing figure we had a few years ago. This argument really hinges on demand, but the demand is at present being met.
I have never thought that it was any part of the business of local authorities to build houses for sale to private persons. Their job, quite clearly, is to build houses for those who have the greatest need for them. There are dozens of other excellent agencies which build houses for sale. I therefore appeal to my hon. Friend, though I do not think that I have any great need to do so, as I am sure that his mind is already persuaded, to bear in mind that if the policy of selling Council houses is accepted a great many people will drop right down the waiting list. As I say, it is no part of the business of local authorities to compete with private builders in providing houses for sale in this way, nor should they interfere in this business.

9.42 p.m.

The Minister of State, Scottish Office (Dr. J. Dickson Mabon): I certainly re-call the occasion to which my hon. Friend the Member for Rutherglen (Mr. Gregor Mackenzie) referred when he was first elected to the Glasgow Corporation. There was a great battle in 1952 about whether Council houses should be sold.
The hon. Member for Moray and Nairn (Mr. G. Campbell) referred to Birmingham, but it is interesting to reflect that in the recent municipal elections in Glasgow, the leader of the Progressives—the rival to the Labour Party, which is in control there—and the leader of the Labour Party issued a Statement on the right before the poll saying that, which-ever party won the election, neither would operate the mass sale of Council houses nor, except in the most special and urgent corcumstances, ever seek to dispose of a Council house.
The reason given by the leader of the Progressive Party for his Statement was that about 80,000 people were on the waiting list. It is interesting to compare the Performance in Glasgow with that in Birmingham.
I do not know exactly how many houses these are in Glasgow, but I would guess that there must be about 320,000. If there are 80,000 families short of a

home and 320,000 houses it means, roughly speaking, that 80 per cent. of Glasgow's people are properly housed— that is assuming that all the houses are good, which they are not. However, taking crude figures, and assuming that all the houses are good houses, and not slums or substandard, 80 per cent. of Glasgow's population is properly housed. If that is a fair figure, we can take it as some measure of what is happenning in other communities in Scotland.
I turn now to Lossiemouth. I am sorry that my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow, Provan (Mr. Hugh D. Brown) spoke as he did. He obviously could not have heard the figures properly, because the hon. Member for Moray and Nairn admitted that 170 families—families, not persons—in Lossiemouth were waiting for houses. I am glad that my hon. Friend misheard the figure. As a result, perhaps he will withdraw what he said earlier. If there are 171 families in the queue for housing, and I calculate that there are something like 1,800 houses in Lossiemouth, it means that 90 per cent. of the people of Lossiemouth have houses and 10 per cent. do not. That is the real measure of the problem. In this crude analysis, one ought to take into consideration the number of houses in Lossiemouth and see how many of them are substandard.
I do not want to go into all the figures, but we are not averse to discussing with a local authority any particular or peculiar circumstances affecting any tenant, and it is not the policy of the Secretary of State to say that we are absolutely against the sale of any Council house. We have said that there will have to be very special circumstances before the Secretary of State will consent.
We have arranged with the Provost of Lossiemouth that my noble Friend Lord Hughes will discuss these particular circumstances with him in detail. However, the hon. Member for Moray and Nairn must be fair and remember that when he gave notice to you, Mr. Speaker, that he would initiate this Adjournment debate, he was not acknowledging one of the points which I made. It is that it is within the discretion of the town Council to give the widow whom he mentioned the assurance which she wanted in respect of her daughter and two grandchildren.
All of my hon. Friends have underlined the fact that, although there is no statutory security of tenure comparable to that under the Rent Act, in practice local authorities give favourable consideration to local authority tenants and their successors, by which I mean not just their successors in law but their successors in morality and the humane consideration of a family's circumstances.
My hon. Friend the Member for Rutherglen argued the case about the existence of houses for sale, and one of the things that I said to the hon. Member for Moray and Nairn was that people in Lossiemouth who have bought Council houses ought to have been encouraged to buy houses for sale which had been built by local builders or unsubsidised houses bought by the local authority. The party opposite has never been keen on local authorities building houses for sale. Nevertheless, I take it that the hon. Gentleman would not be averse to the local authority building houses and selling them in the peculiar circumstances of Lossiemouth.

Miss Margaret Herbison: My hon. Friend has made reference to security of tenure. Might it not be the case that to keep a house within the control of the local authority would give greater security of tenure to a daughter who stayed at home with her parents than she would have if her parents bought the house and willed it to a son who had not lived in it for a long time? Those of us who represent constituencies like my own of Lanarkshire, North know that, until the law was changed, it was very difficult for a woman who was left without a home.

Dr. Dickson Mabon: My right hon. Friend has a good point. Testacy does not always lead to justice being done. Sometimes a local authority committee is more just than the relatives of such a person. However, I will not develop that further at the moment, because I want to go on to the matter of houses for sale.
There are no houses being built for sale in Lossiemouth. There is a site of 20 acres which is owned by a private builder who cannot develop it until the necessary sewerage Services are provided. I take the point that there are private builders in Scotland who keep their own

land banks and will not release land because they themselves are not ready to embark upon speculative building. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State has deplored the practice on many occasions. We have warned private builders that they must not keep land out of public circulation which is necessary for the building of houses for sale. We in St. Andrew's House have worked very hard with the private builders over the last two years to identify areas in Scotland which can be used for building houses for sale. There are many reasons why houses are more expensive in Scotland than they are in most parts of England, and one of these reasons includes the fact that we do not have a proper flow of houses on to the market for sale in Scotland.

Mr. Hogh D. Brown: I do not have time to make any party issues. Can the Scottish Office find out on which land options are held by private enterprise, because this seems to be the real stumbling block?

Dr. Dickson Mabon: The Land Commission is enjoined to help us here. Much work has been done on this. It is very easy to talk in general terms, but when one gets down to specific terms and specific areas, it becomes rather difficult. Some local authorities resent—I can understand why—land being zoned for housing and then being identified as housing for sale when there is an un-satisfied need for houses to let still in the locality. There must be a balance.
I agree that Glasgow has no choice but to go on as it is. There may have been a time when it had a choice, but the circumstances became such, by reason of what the Tories did, that Glasgow had Hobson's choice in the matter. That is why, in the out-county estates, we hope that out of every three houses built at least one will be for sale and the others will be available for letting, as we hope will be the case at Erskine and in other parts.
I assert right away that the position in Scotland has always been, under both Labour and Conservative Governments, quite different from that in England, Scottish local authorities have had to seek the Secretary of State's consent to each individual sale. There is no general consent to sell houses such as exists in England and Wales.


This being so, it is presumably the way in which individual requests for sales of houses have been dealt with that is worrying the hon. Member for Moray and Nairn. I give him this undertaking. The meeting with my hon. Friend Lord Hughes will be held. We will see what transpires from it. It does not always follow, because the Secretary of State refuses, that he is being dictatorial, whether it be a Tory or a Labour Secretary of State. The Secretary of State may be right in the matter which is in dispute. That is why it is important to view all the circumstances rather than just a few of them. It is not sufficient to hear only one side of the case.
The hon. Gentleman asked why there was a change of policy in February, 1967. There was not a change of policy. What happened was this. The previous Government—I think that the hon. Gentleman was Under-Secretary of State for Scotland at the time—late in 1963 or early in 1964 —I do not know when—gave Edinburgh a general dispensation with regard to the sale of Council houses. For that reason, many undertakings there had been entered into and had to be honoured when we came into office. As a consequence of that, there seemed to be some misunderstanding about the practice in Scotland, judged by the number of people asking us whether or not we in our turn had changed the policy in relation to Scotland as a whole. That was not true, either of us or of the previous Government. The previous Government had changed it only in relation to Edinburgh.
The figures are interesting. Since we came to office, we have, on average, approved the sale of 39 Council houses a year in three years. Edinburgh in 1965 accounted for 27 of the 42 sanctioned in the whole of Scotland, and in 1966 Edinburgh accounted for 32 of the total of 57 sanctioned for the whole of Scotland. These were as a consequence for the general dispensation which hon. Members opposite allowed Edinburgh in 1964. We could not go back on them, because agreements had been entered into, and they had to be honoured. In terms of numbers, from 1951 to 1964 the Tory Party sanctioned the sale of 21 Council houses a year in Scotland, on the average, out of the great stock of Council houses held.
Therefore, the hon. Member for Moray and Nairn is embarking on dangerous ground for himself, as the record shows, when he seemingly advocates the sale of Council houses. This is why I was so glad when he rose at once to contradict one of my hon. Friends who accused him of urging the mass sale of Council houses. I remind him that that is not the policy of his party in England.

Mr. G. Campbell: I said that in this debate I was not raising the question of the mass sale of Council houses. I am raising the question of cases of the kind which have come up this year in Lossiemouth, and which would, no doubt, occur in other places. As regards the record of what happened in years past, I think that hon. Members on both sides have made clear that the matter of home ownership has developed recently because the Situation has changed and many more people are interested in owning their own homes now than was the case ten years ago.

Dr. Dickson Mabon: I agree that people now are in a better position to purchase their own houses than they were ten years ago. Albeit that circumstances are difficult today, they are in a much better position than they were ten years ago. I give the hon. Gentleman that. I am only sorry that his party did not do as much as we have done in a short time to try to help private builders in Scotland to get up to the level of building which we need.
We are nowhere near England in this respect. We still have a long way to go before we are building. proportionately, as many private houses for sale as are built in England. That is not the fault of the present Government. It is the fault of past circumstances plus the difficulties facing private builders. It is noteworthy that we are not advocating the building of more private houses for sale at the expense of Council houses. We are trying to enlarge the number in both sectors.
The hon. Gentleman interrupted me at the point when I was responding to his first question about an apparent change of policy. In fact, a change was made by his own Government in respect of Edinburgh in 1964, and the consequence of that was the rise in the sale of houses in Edinburgh, which affected the total in


Scotland in the way I have described. But even that is very small.
The hon. Gentleman's next point—

Mr. G Campbell: Mr. G Campbell rose—

Dr. Dickson Mabon: All right. I congratulate the hon. Gentleman on having a real field day with his Adjournment debate. His interventions are becoming almost as long as his Adjournment speech would have been in the ordinary way.

Mr. G. Campbell: The change of policy about which I was concerned was the apparent change in February this year. The Secretary of State authorised the last sale in Lossiemouth at that time, and it was a very similar case to the subsequent three which were refused. Why has there been this change? Since he has been in office, he has authorised the sale of other similar houses in Lossiemouth.

Dr. Dickson Mabon: That is, I suggest, an argumentum ad locum. It relates entirely to the position in Lossiemouth. On 14th December, 1966, the Secretary of State said:
 In Scotland's present housing position, I am against this "—
that is, the sale of Council houses—
 as a general policy, but I consent to it in very special cases."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 14th December, 1966; Vol. 738, c. 79.]
The hon. Gentleman must not argue that, because there has been a special case to which assent was given in one year, we must in logic assent to all cases in the particular burgh in any subsequent year. That would be nonsense, and I am glad that the hon. Gentleman agrees. It means that we have to argue each case on its merits. Admittedly, it is logical and sensible to take a previous example and try to argue from there, but the hon. Gentleman cannot say that, because we assented to one in the burgh, we should assent to them all.
My hon. Friends have made the case in terms of housing need. This is the first point. One does not sell Council houses where there is a clear need for houses to let. We have adhered rigidly to that approach throughout the time we have been in office. A house sold is a house lost to the general pool of rented housing. It is well known that the ability of local

authorities to meet needs over the years depends as much, or more, on a regular supply of relettings as it does on the building of new houses.
The hon. Gentleman argued that to sell a house to a sitting tenant makes no difference, but merely relieves the authority of the obligation to maintain and subsidise the house. That is to look at the Situation in close blinkers, and very unbusinesslike blinkers, too. It may be true in regard to one house at one time, but that house will at some point in the future fall vacant and be available for another family in need of rented accommodation. If it has been sold, that other family must be accommodated in a newly built house.
Even in the case of an individual house, the sale may not bring a financial gain to the local authority. As my hon. Friend the Member for Paisley (Mr. John Robertson) pointed out, many older local authority houses built when costs were low are not a financial burden on the housing revenue account. It may, indeed, be said that some of the rents are higher than the historic cost actually Warrants.
Because of this the sale of a substantial number of older houses and their replacement by houses to let could have the effect of unnecessarily increasing the rents of remaining houses, or adding to the rate burden, or both, so that the sale of Council houses generally—

It being Ten o'clock, the Motion for the Adjournment of the House lapsed, without Question put.

Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.—[Mr. Fitch.]

Dr. Dickson Mabon: —could end by being a Charge on the ratepayer and a Charge on every person living in a Council house.
I agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Rutherglen that we have increased the output of houses for sale. One has only to look at the recent figures for housebuilding to see that this year we are enjoying a very good year. So far, we have built more than 34,000 houses, so that with the total for this month we should have a very good Output this year. The breakdown of that figure shows an appreciable rise in the number of houses


in the private owner sector. I should like to see this increase much more than has been the case so far.
Small burghs like Lossiemouth should lake account of the position of slums and the fact that, following the Culling-worth Report, we are considering how slum clearance legislation is being operated and how it might be improved. Everyone knows that a large part of slum clearance legislation is discretionary in the eyes of burgh or county surveyors who want more precise definitions. If there is any change in the law, as has been advocated, many so-called substandard houses which are discretionary substandard houses will become statutory slums, thus increasing the number of houses presently officially called slums.
We have also to consider management Problems. To sell some houses in different parts of a block while others are occupied by tenants would be very unfair not only to the housing management committee, but to individuals. There must be some regard:o all the circumstances, not only of the family wanting to buy the house, but of those nearby who would be affected.
The hon. Member for Moray and Nairn advocated selling at an economic price, but he is asking a lot of people v/hen he says that they should buy Council houses at an economic price, that is

council houses which have been occupied for, say, 20 years and not just those very old houses which are 40 years old or more. We have encouraged local authorities to build as many houses as they can purchase.
All who have spoken tonight, including the hon. Member, have clearly shown that the mass sale of Council houses in Scotland would be crazy, crazy from the general social point of view and crazy from the financial point of view, and a great mistake in trying to encourage people properly to own their own houses, which is the right of everyone. If that is the choice of most people, we should try to give them as much assistance to that end as we can. But it is clear that none of us is in favour of the mass sale of Council houses, as is happening already in some of the larger English towns.
Secondly, it is clear that we are not shutting our minds to the prospect of individual circumstances leading to the possibility of houses in particular places being sold at particular times for particular reasons. Both parties when in Office have so far exercised this right in Scotland very sparingly, but I hope that it will be agreed that they have done so fairly. We shall try in this and in other cases to do the same.

Question put and agreed to.

Adjourned accordingly at four minutes past Ten o'clock.